Forumulating Guidelines for Forum Debate

[Yitzi]

Obama, of course.

Yeah, he's very Chamberlain-like; that's one thing I think both sides can agree to criticize him about, though in different areas.

You're taking my metaphor too far - in this case, I'm only talking about the police state aspects, not the communistic leaning or Eastern elements.

Police state seems to be equally embraced by both sides...and  is specifically an atheist police state, which fits with some of the fringe on the left, but isn't going to be welcome on the right at all.

I'm not surprised to get something of a right political perspective from you, having observed that your world-view is deeply informed by conservative religious values, but I'm a bit surprised that you're actually trying to claim the Republican party is what it was before Reagan, I suspect long before you were born; how can you ignore the torture, the camps, the open surveillance of citizens and claim the left is the greater enemy of freedom?

The torture and internment camps are pure  , and the open surveillance of citizens is something that Obama doesn't seem any more willing to get rid of than Bush was.  That said, I'm not claiming the left is a greater enemy of freedom;  and even  are no friends of freedom, and  , to what extent he's found at all, is to be found on the left.  I'm saying that  in particular is more welcome on the left than the right, simply because  hates him as much as  , and is far more prominent on the right than  is on the left.

Small government always seems to end up conflicting with , , or 

Not always.  The use of government to persecute religion (as was found in the French revolution), for example, is not something that any of those three would favor, and so its absence is a form of small government that doesn't conflict with them.  Which would normally be too much of a niche case to be relevant, except that  it's the sort of thing that really likes.

and the small government conservatives (who are NOT wrong, on the whole) don't belong in the same party with  at all.  I have no ideas of what they can do about it without marginalizing what political power they have left, but Sarah Palin is very much the enemy of what they hold dearest at least as much or more so than Andrea Dworkin.

True.  Actual small government conservatives (i.e. conservative libertarians) will tend to be a mix of  and  , possibly with  thrown in there too, probably agreeing with  in the private sphere, but not the public one.

(My own position gets quite a bit more complicated; while I favor  (with a different religion, of course) in principle, it's the wrong choice for this country, where  is the right answer.  I also strongly favor  , and think  and  , and even  to a small extent, have important ideas to contribute but should not be followed blindly.  I think  has some good ideas, but would rather use  's or  's approach to getting them implemented; I also respect except when she starts to look like  or  .  I think  is nuts,  is evil, and  doesn't really apply here.    doesn't really care that much what other people think of him, and I return the favor.)

[Buster's Uncle]

This is fun; two pedantic nerds agreeing right off that politics and public policy issues are complicated. 

More thoughts coming, but bedtime nears...

Should I move all this into the argument thread?

[Yitzi]

This is fun; two pedantic nerds agreeing right off that politics and public policy issues are complicated. 

More thoughts coming, but bedtime nears...

Should I move all this into the argument thread?

Up to you.

[Geo]

LOL. I wonder what a censor woukd make of the use if all those smilies.

[Yitzi]

LOL. I wonder what a censor woukd make of the use if all those smilies.

Censor?  I must be missing something.

[Buster's Uncle]

He's noting that all the  looks like comedy censor substitution images, coming in the middle of sentences in place of words like Business, War, Religion and Police State.

[Dio]

Why is the response line showing up as "Re:Re:Putting the weeds to work for Us" in certain posts?

[Buster's Uncle]

Because I moved the posts in question here from there, and left the titles alone to make which clear for archival purposes.

---

Ironically, has her libertarian side, although we've been using her for War...

, I will no longer use for Police State tendancies, because it's gotten too complicated with the atheist aspect, confusing the issue.

I think the leaderheads as metaphors for ideas spontaneously popping up is hilarious, BTW.

[Valka]

O-kay, I'm totally confused now, since I don't have much familiarity about those smileys, other than that they're SMAC characters. The argument itself, let alone any nuances that may be there, is completely lost on me.

[Dio]

They appear to be spewing faction related philosophical thoughts that contain very little content.

[Buster's Uncle]

[ninja'd] I resent that, it not being true.


Fair enough, Valka.  A rough key to the central features I believe we both intended in using the faction leaders:

  Deirdre of the Gaians, a Green lefty-type.
  Yang of the hive, I meant Police State, but it got complicated.
  Zakarov of the University, Science.
  Morgan (think Donald [Sleezebag]) of the Morganites, Big Business.
  Santiago of the Spartans, War (although she thinks she's a Libertarian).
  Miriam of the Believers, Religion (as involved in US politics in this case - she's somewhat a symbol of the Tea Party types, too, though the correspondence is inexact).
  Lal of the Peacekeepers, Democracy and Freedom, perhaps Internationalism and World Peace, too.
  H'minee of the Caretakers, Radical Environmentalism, alien.
  Cha Dawn of the Cult of Planet, also Radical Environmentalism, obnoxious.
  Aki Zeta 5 of the Cybernetic Conciousness, Science with a transhuman angle.
  Domai of the Free Drones, Labor, perhaps even militant labor, the Drones being all about that.
  Roze of the Data Angels, Free Information and computer stuff; it's a hacker faction.
  Svensgaard of the Pirates, Piracy with a little Jacques Cousteau thrown in.
  Marr of the Manifold Usurpers, just plain mean.

SMACX really knocked the story elements out of the park; when we finally lure you over the dark side, you're gonna love that part.  The personalities are strong enough that we were able to launch into doing the cute smilie stuff with only confusion with , out of 14.

[Dio]

Too much informal diction hurts my eyes  .  seems to caught somewhere between evil despot and collectivist ruler with a splash of authoritianism thrown in for good measure. He appears to enjoy torturing the people who follow him.

[Buster's Uncle]

Does not compute.

[Rusty Edge]

That was fun. I sort of followed it, but putting in a key for the    watchers & decoders kinda spoils the entertainment value.

[Buster's Uncle]

Funny; I (and Yitzi too, if I understand) was just being cute doing that, not trying to be mysterious.  These are pretty universally understood personality traits for each leader to SMACers, which I'd say is a mark of the resonant power of the game's storytelling.