My best friend and I found a bunch of Soviet Communists

[The Straight Story]

I am 43 now. I have known my best friend James since I was 13. We were on the chess club together. When he came out of the closet I was one of the first people he told. We have been there for each other through major life changes, even though we have not seen each other much in the last few years.

I saw him today, been about 2 years (though we call and email here and there). He called me again tonight to talk about a job interview I had and one I have tomorrow.

And we flipped through the pages of our memories to when we were teens - and how some things we did back then applied to today.

We played chess, wrote code, spent endless hours at the library, and one night, just for fun, we took out the yellow pages and started flipping through them.

Being two guys that played in chess tournaments and were members of a local chess club we had a lot of exposure to some folks who had fled here from the Soviet Union. So for fun we decided to play a game.

Find the commie ads based on colors used (red of course was an alert) and keywords in phone book ads.

We actually spent a few hours doing this.

Which leads me to what we discussed today.

---------

It does not seem to matter the topic, there will always be people who find something negative in a story (or ad).

Take the post today on Angel Food Ministries. With the good they do, someone finds something negative in them. Remember when Steve Irwin died and the threads here about him? Some found the good in what he did, others tended towards the negative. The list could go on and on.

It does not matter the topic - if your mind is made up and closed you will find a way to justify your position (or ideals). And I would venture to say I find myself doing the same from time to time.

You find what you seek. So I guess the question becomes, what is it you are seeking - a true and honest view of something, or just that which justifies your own position?

It is humbling to admit you are wrong on something, and one can only do so when they look at their own core beliefs and then applies those beliefs across a variety of situations. Does what you feel hold up when the value judgments are applied elsewhere?

To wit: Personal choice. From smoking to how many kids you have to guns, to the environmental impact, to the health impact of what you eat and how that affects health care costs, and so on.

On the one hand a person can say they are in favor of X legislation because it punishes a behavior we see as harmful to the group, but on the other hand such laws restrict personal choice.

Seat belts, drinking, owning guns, smoking, breast feeding, how many kids you have, marijuana, dare I say the Olive Garden :), eating meat, driving a van versus a hybrid (I didn't have a car until today, my dad gave me mom's old van so I could go to some interviews and have something if I get a job, it is not great on gas mileage - and when I say gave me - he signed it over to me), and so on.

So here I find myself - I own a big van, I smoke, I have 5 kids total (ages 7 to 22), I like to drink at times, I have shopped at wal mart, and I like to eat meat.

And I feel like a pariah to some here. The same people who cry out for freedom and personal choice in their own lives want to control or condemn my personal choices (or more to the point, want more and more control over those choices).

I support gay marriage, the right for a woman to have control over her own body, the right for you to live your life the way you want to. I don't care if you own guns, or don't. I don't care if you are a vegetarian or not. I don't want to impose my beliefs on your life.

I look for freedom. And I am finding less and less of it.

[hendo]

1. kick and rec NT

[ima_sinnic]

2. that spying graphic is very creepy. so you can do it--but why would u want to?

[The Straight Story]

3. You know

I think you hit on something there: 'you can do it -- but why would you want to?'

I get the feeling that that is what behind a great many issues in the world :)

[hendo]

7. it isn't like it logs anything for me

I just liked it. :) And maybe it will freak out the people here that wear permanent tin foil hats. That would be an added bonus

[NeedleCast]

4. Well Said

As a person who has had the luxury to travel all over the country and throughout some of the world, I'm convinced that you won't find a more easily offended country than the US.

I can't point to the one era where people here decided it was important to get up in everyone else's business. Americans in general seem to have this idea that they have a right to never see, hear or smell anything that offends them in any way.

Straight Story, you're one of my favorite posters here because you own a big van, smoke, have five kids, like to drink at times, shop at wal-mart, eat meat...and, you're a Democrat.

The Ban Brigade will, eventually, get exactly what they want. A white-washed, vanilla word of clones, eating, to quote my beloved Dennis Leary "a banana and broccoli milkshake". They'll get it in the name of child safety and public healthy and elimination of thought crime. Like I've, said, the extreme right and extreme left want the same thing, the only thing that differs in the manner in which they want to reach it.

Hopefully I'll be dead long before it happens.

[The Straight Story]

5. Thank you my friend

To me being a democrat is about one major word: Choice.

The right can rationalize why we need to limit choice (from abortion to gay marriage) as can the left (guns, smoking, too many kids, etc and so on).

There IS a reasonable middle ground, one we must have as part of a civilized society. There is way too much fear out there. And that fear can lead us down the path of destroying our freedoms.

[NeedleCast]

6. There IS a reasonable middle ground

That's pretty much how I see it. Extremism from either side will never lead to anything good.

In what might have been the double-irony award of the year, I saw a few interesting posts on anther forum today. The OP linked to a story about a high school in Texas debating about whether or not to ban the book Fahrenheit 451 - a book about banning (and burning) books. Further along in the thread, others suggested that we "try to ban some conservative books since they're trying to ban Fahrenheit 451." Suggesting that we fight censorship of a book about censorship with...censorship. The mind boggles.

(and bump, because more people should read the OP).

[Hannah Bell]

8. "With the good they do, someone finds something negative in them."

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Stalin brought the USSR from feudalism to world-class power in 20 years.

Hitler created jobs & ended the German Depression.

Angel Food Ministries sells food boxes at wholesale.

They don't need 7+ million taxpayer dollars to do that, any food coop, buying club or 501(c)3 can do the same without subsidy, & taxpayer dollars shouldn't be going to support churches, which is what their kickback & gov't-loan-funded building programs are.

You cast this opinion as "negativity". I cast it as defense of the principle of separation of church & state.

I also note the good reverend heading the program gave $12,500 to the RNC last year, & his family (mostly employees of afm) gave thousands to local R's.

The town his church is in has 11,000 people. How *does* he manage such big political donations on a small-town pastor's salary?

Yes, I find many negatives here.