Reason is not Rational

[Quantum Windbag]

I knew you would reply, that my friend is the point of the OP and you must see you/we are proving it true. Next question would be have you anything to add to the conversation. Let's see. Sorry if I make you feel insecure, adding quotes is just a little dressing, I love books and reading and have collected quotes since autoexec dot bat started your PC. I see you have one too, and it shows well your ideology of social Darwinism. Free means only free to you, that quote helps explain your more self centered views.[

The point of the OP is the top of your head.

Why would you posting quotes make me feel insecure? I recognize that they are camouflage for your insecurity. If you actually trusted your own intelligence you would not need to post quotes about everything in an attempt to look intelligent yourself.

By the way, my first computer did not use batch files, and I was reading long before that. I have read many more books than you, and probably have read more books than everyone you know. If you are actually half as old as you are trying to imply that you are you will understand that reading only helps if you get more than quotes out of what you read.

Saying all humans are self centered because they are human is a useless tautology. People often do things that are not self centered and anyone married for a long time knows that or should.

Would you prefer me to point out that your genes make you self centered?

As for being married, couples often make choices in the interest of avoiding conflict. I am not sure how you think that proves that those choices are not self centered, but feel free to expound on that and prove, yet again, that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Your views are limited in the same way all views are limited. But you are the ideologue here, and engage in same tactics most people on the right do, you define the left so you can kick it. This tactic started long ago (maybe always was), but in America it grew after FDR and later LBJ. You show in your writing that you are a product of this change in values. If you think skin color does not affect possibility, you must be very young and unread or so enmeshed in your ideology you refuse to see the real. Does anyone need to prove that? Really?

If you ever point to me saying my views are not limited you might have a point here. What I wondered, and still do, is how I am imposing my limited beliefs on you.


If you actually pay attention to my posts you would know that I am as willing to kick the right as often as I do the left. You would also notice that I am not defining anything here, I am simply challenging your assertion that you, alone in the world, are not self centered. The fact that you are trying to misrepresent my arguments makes me an ideologue and dogmatic because you cannot help but see the world through the glasses that you were trained to look through. That makes anyone who disagrees with you and challenges your ideology automatically wrong, even if they challenge you about something that is actually irrelevant.

Your personal story is interesting. It could be that there is a conservative component to our personalities and you can only see things through that filter. I hate to say or admit nature is more powerful than nurture, being liberal I have hopes of change for the better for all and not just C?Os. The concept and use of free will is interesting and debatable but beyond our scope here.

I only appear conservative to you because you are liberal, and believe that there are only two choices. That is another way your world is limited and another demonstration of you being self centered.

Again though you miss the point and fill in your reality. If I really understood reason it would be 'your' reason - is that what you mean, why not just say that? I may even think of Penn State when you say blue, doesn't change blue, it actually confirms we both know blue. If I say red light I think you get the picture.

The only reason we both know view is we share a language map. That has nothing to do with reason.

Brains are so identical that if I raise my hand your brain duplicates that hand raising. Brain injuries or defects aside. Check that out if you doubt me. Experience and learning are different, and values and empathy differ, but if we look out the world is the same, what we do with that depends a lot on all all that went before and how much we care or wonder. I agree with your comment, " Maybe some people are more than the [sum] of their parts. If only everyone was capable of looking outside themselves and growing past who they are born to be."

The surface similarities between our brains does not change the fact that we are all different, just like snowflakes. Check that if you doubt me.

We don't shape things according to what goes on inside our heads, we shape the information coming into our heads. Our lives and lots of other stuff preceded this interpretation. Allow me another telling quote, in the mid fifties, "generosity was voted the most conspicuous American characteristic, followed by friendliness, understanding, piety, love of freedom, and progressivism. The American faults listed were petty: shallowness, egotism, extravagance, preoccupation with money, and selfishness." William Manchester in "The Glory and the Dream" quoting George Gallup's Institute of public opinion. Now tell me what changed? Or can you fit that somewhere and say it didn't change?

No it did not. It cannot because we are our brains, and nothing happens to us outside of them. The world would not exist if our brain did not exist.

Feel free to make any quote you like. I hold out hope that you will one day learn to actually think and not need them, but throw them around if it makes you feel better. They actually amuse me, especially this one.

Can you possibly explain how a bunch of people voting calling themselves generous actually proves anything other than that people are capable of self deception?

Yes, the Wallace quote covers the topic well, the part that interests me is the background and the change in American values from a time when youth was about the whole country, and not the narrow minded self centered children of today. The world in so many ways is the same today and sadly full of the same senseless suffering. Maybe it is tragedy that is the human being's state of being. Nah.

Or maybe, everyone lies because they are self centered and like to look good to other people.

That would, however, require you admitting you are wrong. As self centered as you are I doubt you will do so, but you should think about it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Then you pop out a quote that you think makes you look intelligent.

No, he pops out quotes of because he has a total lack of eloquence and needs to steal the words of others, to obfuscate the fact that he's a narrow, reactionary, bigoted, leftloon tool.

That too.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Long ago reading Derek Parfit's 'Reasons And Persons' I became fascinated with all the reasons we give for our actions. Parfit was interested in the various ways we rationalize our behavior and our justifications in a secular world. One item that fascinated me was the debate on self interest and actual behavior. I had had a long debate arguing 'self interest' is not the only motivating factor in our decision making. My wife told me just recently, that I am never self centered. I liked that thought. Finding this piece adds to the complexity of reasons and persons.

"Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That's why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. So, as they put it,"The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."

The Argumentative Theory | Conversation | Edge

'Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory'

"Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation." SSRN-Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory by Hugo Mercier, Dan Sperber

Everyone is self centered. Everyone. Yes, that includes you, and the fact that you took pleasure from your wife telling you that you are never self centered demonstrates your own self centered nature. You are free not to like that about others, and even yourself, but denying it is stupid. Being self centered is only bad if you also ignore the fact that your welfare depends on others.

Your belief that you are not self centered is actually evidence that your own reasoning is faulty. That does it make it irrational. You seem to believe that being rational means that everyone will always come to te same conclusion given identical sets of facts. I am not sure why anyone would believe this, other than their own confirmation bias. People percive reality differently, we just impose a map on the world through language that allows us to communicate despite the fat that we do not live in the same reality.

Reason is rational by definition. Just because tow seperate people are capable of rationally reasoning their way to different conclusions does not make one of them irrational. there are almost 7 billion people on the planet, and every single one of them reasons rationally. You may not like their conclusions, but you do not get to dismiss them as irrational.

If you were not a completely arrogant asshole you would understand this without someone having to take the time to explain it to you.

Your brief treatise on the subject was equally good, until you reached the point where you found it necessary to call someone an arrogant asshole, which in effect is contrary to your previous statement "You may not like their conclusions, but you do not get to dismiss them as irrational."

Midcan5 is an arrogant asshole. That does not make him irrational, just arrogant and an asshole. I fail to see how me pointing out the simple truth in any way means I reject his conclusions as being irrational. Especially when you consider the fact that he did not present any conclusions of his own.

 

[midcan5]

Interesting even with the mostly ad hominem replies. So I'll skip them being the.... It is too funny sometimes. Cyberspace children who feel the need to name call rather than put forth a thoughtful position are fascinating in a sort of anthropological sense. You get to study beliefs and meaning up close. Oddly it supports the OP again. Most replies are not very reasonable, but at least Quantum Windbag gives a thoughtful reply, Oddball ironically accuses me of his major qualities. Never has he posted a well argued or thoughtful OP, never.

QW, when you have to mention intelligence and quotes in the way you did, you seem insecure, never would I criticize another for research nor think they are pretending to be intelligent. That my friend is childishness on your part. You don't know me well enough and you are reading 'you' into my posts. Is that clear?

It is also insecure to claim you have read more than I have. Sorta schoolyard childish. http://www.usmessageboard.com/reviews/85148-reading-that-opens-the-mind-books.html

If a person wants to believe all people are self centered have at it, it seems normal because we are material creatures who have brains and live in our minds which exist in a social situation. Read Parfit's book I noted above if you want to doubt yourself. But maybe you have read it? [Sorry for that bit of...]

Language is inherited and for those of us who have grandkids an excellent experience in seeing how much is nurture. Language has everything to do with reason, this gets into another book I read recently on Wittgenstein's private language by Saul Kripke. There are no private languages or realities in your words, we can't do it. We are social creatures in the end outside of society we would be ????

Things in America have changed and again this is something I have noticed being a sixties hippie as well as GI during Nam. I was down South in the sixties. If you don't see it, that is normal, we all live our lives in a limited historical and social moment.

One last thing, a personal peeve, if you choose to argue more, just do it in paragraph form, I find this breaking up into quotes annoying. That though is a personal grip. And thanks for a more reasoned argument.


"The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." John Cage.

 

[MaggieMae]

Then you pop out a quote that you think makes you look intelligent.

No, he pops out quotes of because he has a total lack of eloquence and needs to steal the words of others, to obfuscate the fact that he's a narrow, reactionary, bigoted, leftloon tool.

That too.

Holy shit, the cons here must absolutely go into cringe and hide mode when people like Political Chic starts a thread. That means, gasp, they might need to wade through her numerous quoted material before they reach her couple of lines of stated opinion on the quoted material.

Funny, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone from the right complaining when anyone from the right does the same thing. Hypocrites, all.

 

[Wiseacre]

The idea of The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning may have some legs to it, but reasoning itself also has to arrive at conclusions that lead to positive outcomes, or at least non-fatal or non-serious negative ones. So, while winning the argument is great, your line of reasoning better work out more times than not or there will be consequences. Not sure I'd dismiss the notion that rational thought and decisions are out of the purvue of reasoning.

 

[editec]

Reason is the tool with which we defend our (often unstated) presuppositions that are (in themselves) not supportable by rational thought.

I (we) often disagree with people whose arguments are quite rational.

When that happens, look to the presuppositions which in all likelihood, neither of you have stated.

And it is there where one will often discover the root source of the dispute.

For example...if humanist is debating a corporatist, both can come to the debate with rational arguments.

 

[RadiomanATL]

Does midcan think for themsleves?

Answer: Lemme go find a quote on that....

 

[Wiseacre]

Reason is the tool with which we defend our (often unstated) presuppositions that are (in themselves) not supportable by rational thought.

I (we) often disagree with people whose arguments are quite rational.

When that happens, look to the presuppositions which in all likelihood, neither of you have stated.

And it is there where one will often discover the root source of the dispute.

For example...if humanist is debating a corporatist, both can come to the debate with rational arguments.

Reason is the name that we use, but that tool or process might not really be accurately labeled as "reason". IOW, if you're not using rational logic in supporting your argument, then you're maybe not using "reason" but something else entirely.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Interesting even with the mostly ad hominem replies. So I'll skip them being the.... It is too funny sometimes. Cyberspace children who feel the need to name call rather than put forth a thoughtful position are fascinating in a sort of anthropological sense. You get to study beliefs and meaning up close. Oddly it supports the OP again. Most replies are not very reasonable, but at least Quantum Windbag gives a thoughtful reply, Oddball ironically accuses me of his major qualities. Never has he posted a well argued or thoughtful OP, never.

Funny that you are doing exactly what you accuse me of.

When you make a claim that you are not self centered there is no way to refute that claim but to take the argument to you and point out the things you do that prove that you are self centered. You are the one that opened the door to the ad hominen, I just drove the excavator through the opening, and had room to spare. If you had not tried to insert yourself into a debate about rationality and reason I would not have been able to demonstrate that you are an arrogant asshole with your OP in the topic.

Just saying.

You retaliate by trying to upset me by saying I am young and inexperienced. When that fails you resort to calling me a child. If you truly were not self centered you would not have to resort to ad hominen attacks on me. You would be able to shrug off the attacks on your claim that you are not self centered and demonstrate by your superior ability to absorb insults the fact that you are capable of meeting emotional attacks with logic and superior intellect.

QW, when you have to mention intelligence and quotes in the way you did, you seem insecure, never would I criticize another for research nor think they are pretending to be intelligent. That my friend is childishness on your part. You don't know me well enough and you are reading 'you' into my posts. Is that clear?

I see what you post, and it is quite clearly the work of a person who is well educated, yet never learned to think for himself. He was spoon fed his entire intellectual life, never had any of the foundations of his beliefs challenged, and never came through that challenge to emerge from the other side as a different person. Come back if you grow up and understand what I mean.

What I just described is not me. I am not reading me into your posts.

It is also insecure to claim you have read more than I have. Sorta schoolyard childish.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/reviews/85148-reading-that-opens-the-mind-books.html

It is a simple statement of fact. What is insecure is not accepting the way the world is, and insisting that everything anyone disagrees with you is being childish. I could post a list of all the books I have read, but that would definitely be childish. (That, by the way, is how an adult handles children.)

If a person wants to believe all people are self centered have at it, it seems normal because we are material creatures who have brains and live in our minds which exist in a social situation. Read Parfit's book I noted above if you want to doubt yourself. But maybe you have read it? [Sorry for that bit of...]

If you want to provide some evidence that anyone who has ever lived or is currently living is not self centered feel free. So far all you have done by insisting that you are not is prove that you are. The burden here is on the person that is making the claim that flies in the face of the evidence, not the one that can point to social evolution, economics theory, and the entire extent of history to back up his statement. People have actually won Nobel Prizes for demonstrating that everyone is self centered.

You threw in a comment about you not being self centered because it made you, personally, look good. I challenged you, and you have been in a snit ever since. Instead of trying to make me prove the obvious why don't you prove me wrong?

Language is inherited and for those of us who have grandkids an excellent experience in seeing how much is nurture. Language has everything to do with reason, this gets into another book I read recently on Wittgenstein's private language by Saul Kripke. There are no private languages or realities in your words, we can't do it. We are social creatures in the end outside of society we would be ????[/quoge]

Language is not inherited. You can take a child of Chinese parents who have never spoken English in their lives and raise it around people that speak English and it will learn English just as easily as a child born to English speaking parents.

By the way, all language is essentially private. I already argued that point when I pointed out that language is essentially a map we use to communicate with others, and that, even though we use the same words, they do not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone who hears them.

Things in America have changed and again this is something I have noticed being a sixties hippie as well as GI during Nam. I was down South in the sixties. If you don't see it, that is normal, we all live our lives in a limited historical and social moment.

Am I supposed to believe your assertion that they changed without you offering any proof? Using Occam's razor I find it a lot easier to believe that people have essentially stayed the same since the first day someone rubbed sticks together to make a fire. The only thing that has actually changed is that people are more willing to admit that, just because someone lives on the same street, it does not mean they are the same as they are. If you cannot see that I pity you.

One last thing, a personal peeve, if you choose to argue more, just do it in paragraph form, I find this breaking up into quotes annoying. That though is a personal grip. And thanks for a more reasoned argument.

How is addressing your points in one continuous post any more valid than breaking your post up and taking it point by point?

"The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." John Cage.

You just illustrated my points about quotes.

Insecure people use quotes to bolster their position, secure people use them to make a point. The fact that most of your quotes are, at best, tangentially related to the point you are trying to make indicates which of us is insecure.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

No, he pops out quotes of because he has a total lack of eloquence and needs to steal the words of others, to obfuscate the fact that he's a narrow, reactionary, bigoted, leftloon tool.

That too.

Holy shit, the cons here must absolutely go into cringe and hide mode when people like Political Chic starts a thread. That means, gasp, they might need to wade through her numerous quoted material before they reach her couple of lines of stated opinion on the quoted material.

Funny, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone from the right complaining when anyone from the right does the same thing. Hypocrites, all.

If I am a con does that make you a pro?

Which is more indicative of a person who cringes and hides from others? A person who, like you, insists on using derogatory terms about the opposition, or a person who, like me, lets a person's actions make the point for them?

PoliticalChick sources her arguments, and I usually enjoy reading her posts. The fact that she actually takes the time to research makes them interesting, and when I disagree with what she says I will step in and say so.

Midcan5, on the other hand, throws random quotes from people into a post, and they rarely have anything to do with that he is saying. The fact that you cannot see the difference says all anyone needs to about you.

 

[percysunshine]

Logos is a cool place.

Logos Paxi: Logos village in the island of Paxi, Greece, Ionian

 

[Oddball]

Does midcan think for themsleves?

Answer: Lemme go find a quote on that....

Yeah...And let me see if I can dig up a book on the subject, over at Amazon!

 

[Oddball]

Interesting even with the mostly ad hominem replies....

What do you expect from acting as such an overbearing, elitist, snot gasbag?...Maybe that people will drop to their knees and start genuflecting, as though you've strutted down from the mountain bearing all the world's revealed truths?

Here's a good idea...Search through the Amazon website for a couple of good books on how to get the fuck over yourself.

 

[RadiomanATL]

Does midcan think for themsleves?

Answer: Lemme go find a quote on that....

Yeah...And let me see if I can dig up a book on the subject, over at Amazon!

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Quotes-Occasions/dp/1592577415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305415119&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Great Quotes for All Occasions (9781592577415): Elaine Bernstein Partnow: Books[/ame]

 

[midcan5]

MaggieMae, what a group of children huh, I love the circle jerk they require to feel all grownup. I have lived too long and seen too much to ever take them too seriously. I am glad though someone with sense entered the discussion, even PC got it. thanks for input.

Now back to the wingnuts:

LOL No real replies to the OP, more ad homs and criticism of the messenger rather than the idea. Weird how it became about me and not the OP, more on that below. I happen to love quotations as they often contain great insight in a few words, if you don't understand or agree with them sorry. Why not reply to the OP instead of the usual whining? I love poetry too, check out that thread sometime, really good stuff there too.

But allow me to extrapolate for a minute and annoy the wingnuts who live by slogan rather than thought and education. If one traces the recent Right Wing Libertarian Cheap Labor Conservative Republican Tea Party Free Market Wingnuts' (I've always wanted to use that, it grabs them all) assault on the American values of fairness and justice for all, it is always the liberals or democrats and now progressives who are at fault. We often get a good laugh at the school children who deny they are to blame for some wrong, it is always someone else's fault or the system's fault. This is true of the RWLCLCRTPFMW as well, they never address the underlying reasons for something, they simply react emotionally as children do, cursing the source of some bit of information that is not in their limited stock of slogan knowledge. But why waste more of my time, others see this too, so a few relevant and pertinent quotes to enlighten or hopefully annoy. These quotes, in a few words, hold more truth than anything the RWLCLCRTPFMW believe or even know. When you make the debate about the poster expect to be called out for the tools you all are. LOL


"For anyone born after 1945, the welfare state and its institutions were not a solution to earlier dilemmas: they were simply the normal conditions of life - and more than a little dull. The baby boomers, entering university in the mid sixties, had only ever known the world of improving life chances, generous medical and educational services, optimistic prospects of a upward social mobility and - perhaps above all - an indefinable but ubiquitous sense of security. The goals of an earlier generation of reformers were no longer of interest to their successors. On the contrary they were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land' [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Fares-Land-Tony-Judt/dp/1594202761/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8]Amazon.com: Ill Fares the Land (9781594202766): Tony Judt: Books[/ame]


"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land'

"Not only does there seem to be widespread social fragmentation and disillusionment with democracy in the United States, but the possibility of reversing this sense of alienation appears to many of us to be already lost. Any democratic president who wants to institute the desperately needed reforms in health, welfare and the environment faces one of two options. He can stick by his reform program and suffer a loss of public confidence through orchestrated campaigns to publicly portray him as 'too liberal' and ineffectual (the Carter image) or too indecisive or sexually indiscreet (the Clinton image). Alternatively, a reforming democratic president can move further to the Right, forget his promises and become part of the propaganda campaign. Given the history of democratic propaganda in the United States, some of us doubt that another Roosevelt or New Deal is possible. The political system is now so attuned to business interests that this kind of reformer could no longer institute the substantial health, welfare, education, environmental and employment reforms the country needs." Andrew Lohrey, Introduction, Alex Carey "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy"

"What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system which they are presumably part. Repetition, somewhat overrated in importance because of the common belief in the masses' inferior capacity to grasp and remember, is important because it convinces them of consistency in time." Hannah Arendt

"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all for fear of being carried off their feet. The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right." Alexis De Tocqueville

"It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." Harry Frankfurt

"Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hands-Making-Conservative-Movement/dp/0393059308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247845984&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books[/ame]


Enough for now, there is more truth in these words than most can accept.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

LOL No real replies to the OP, more ad homs and criticism of the messenger rather than the idea. Weird how it became about me and not the OP, more on that below. I happen to love quotations as they often contain great insight in a few words, if you don't understand or agree with them sorry. Why not reply to the OP instead of the usual whining? I love poetry too, check out that thread sometime, really good stuff there too. [/quote]

You made this about you, and whine when we focus on you. How childish.

Let us get hypothetical. How would you address a post where I claimed that I was smarter than anyone in the entire universe? Can you describe how you would address that without an ad hominen response? You seem to think you can make outrageous claims about yourself and then claim that any response to your claims is a logical fallacy. Ad hominens are only logical fallacies if I ignore your arguments about the point you are making. Since your actual point is that you are not self centered, that just demonstrates your complete lack of intellectual honesty and your self centered nature.

But allow me to extrapolate for a minute and annoy the wingnuts who live by slogan rather than thought and education. If one traces the recent Right Wing Libertarian Cheap Labor Conservative Republican Tea Party Free Market Wingnuts' (I've always wanted to use that, it grabs them all) assault on the American values of fairness and justice for all, it is always the liberals or democrats and now progressives who are at fault. We often get a good laugh at the school children who deny they are to blame for some wrong, it is always someone else's fault or the system's fault. This is true of the RWLCLCRTPFMW as well, they never address the underlying reasons for something, they simply react emotionally as children do, cursing the source of some bit of information that is not in their limited stock of slogan knowledge. But why waste more of my time, others see this too, so a few relevant and pertinent quotes to enlighten or hopefully annoy. These quotes, in a few words, hold more truth than anything the RWLCLCRTPFMW believe or even know. When you make the debate about the poster expect to be called out for the tools you all are. LOL

Again you demonstrate your self centered nature. What makes you think you are actually capable of influencing people who may be thousands of miles away from you? Is it because some of us are actually able to get under your skin by focusing on your flaws?

"For anyone born after 1945, the welfare state and its institutions were not a solution to earlier dilemmas: they were simply the normal conditions of life - and more than a little dull. The baby boomers, entering university in the mid sixties, had only ever known the world of improving life chances, generous medical and educational services, optimistic prospects of a upward social mobility and - perhaps above all - an indefinable but ubiquitous sense of security. The goals of an earlier generation of reformers were no longer of interest to their successors. On the contrary they were increasingly perceived as restrictions upon the self-expression and freedom of the individual." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land' Amazon.com: Ill Fares the Land (9781594202766): Tony Judt: Books

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594202761/?tag=usmb-20

How is this quote relative to the theme that people are irrational because they reason?

"Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them." Tony Judt 'Ill Fares the Land'

"Not only does there seem to be widespread social fragmentation and disillusionment with democracy in the United States, but the possibility of reversing this sense of alienation appears to many of us to be already lost. Any democratic president who wants to institute the desperately needed reforms in health, welfare and the environment faces one of two options. He can stick by his reform program and suffer a loss of public confidence through orchestrated campaigns to publicly portray him as 'too liberal' and ineffectual (the Carter image) or too indecisive or sexually indiscreet (the Clinton image). Alternatively, a reforming democratic president can move further to the Right, forget his promises and become part of the propaganda campaign. Given the history of democratic propaganda in the United States, some of us doubt that another Roosevelt or New Deal is possible. The political system is now so attuned to business interests that this kind of reformer could no longer institute the substantial health, welfare, education, environmental and employment reforms the country needs." Andrew Lohrey, Introduction, Alex Carey "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy"

"What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system which they are presumably part. Repetition, somewhat overrated in importance because of the common belief in the masses' inferior capacity to grasp and remember, is important because it convinces them of consistency in time." Hannah Arendt

"I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all for fear of being carried off their feet. The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort necessary to set things right." Alexis De Tocqueville

"It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth - this indifference to how things really are - that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." Harry Frankfurt

"Historian Phillips-Fein traces the hidden history of the Reagan revolution to a coterie of business executives, including General Electric official and Reagan mentor Lemuel Boulware, who saw labor unions, government regulation, high taxes and welfare spending as dire threats to their profits and power. From the 1930s onward, the author argues, they provided the money, organization and fervor for a decades-long war against New Deal liberalism—funding campaigns, think tanks, magazines and lobbying groups, and indoctrinating employees in the virtues of unfettered capitalism." Amazon.com: Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (9780393059304): Kim Phillips-Fein: Books


Enough for now, there is more truth in these words than most can accept.

Or any of these?

 

[Oddball]

This is rich...Complain about ad hominems out of one side of your mouth, while simultaneously trashing anyone with the temerity to disagree with you as a "wingnut" out the other.

As though we needed more evidence that there are few people in the world less introspective than the American leftloon

 

[midcan5]

How is this quote relative to the theme that people are irrational because they reason?

The quotes are related to you and Oddball's responses, go back and read the assumptions you presented in the early replies and my replies.

Oddball, if you give it expect it back. I'm still waiting for an original thought from you? Any chance I'll / we'll ever see one?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

How is this quote relative to the theme that people are irrational because they reason?

The quotes are related to you and Oddball's responses, go back and read the assumptions you presented in the early replies and my replies.

Oddball, if you give it expect it back. I'm still waiting for an original thought from you? Any chance I'll / we'll ever see one?

Are they? Have you even read the quotes that you post? Most of them sound like the garbage posted by social conservatives that argue we should go back to having prayer in schools. How is that at all relevant to anything, unless it is an attempt on your part to look stupid.