Opinionated
I truly enjoy conversations with people who have a strong opinion about something. Even more delightful than that, is when they can argue me into an intellectual corner until I can't possibly argue back. When they make a valid point that makes me simply stop and think about what it is that they're trying to get me to believe.
I am a classic fence-sitter. I can see both sides of almost any issue. That makes it awfully hard to believe in anything, or feel passionate about something. About the only thing I get seriously worked up about is the choice of typefaces in advertising, and even I know that it is all relative to the eye of the beholder. So, to be around someone who truly believes in something with the depth of their being fascinates me. How do people get like that? Why don't I?
I had an discussion (I call it that, the person I was talking to might call it an argument) with a die-hard Republican about the war in Iraq. Now, I don't go into these situations intending to upset anyone; I usually take a neutral stance and let everyone else around me fight about it. It's a good way to assess the argument and hear relative facts about both sides before I make a decision. However, there was no one else around during this particular conversation, so that left me to play devil's advocate.
"Do you think we should be there, or are you a stupid liberal, too?"
With a lead-in like that, where are you supposed to go? Where's a die-hard Democrat when I need one? I told this man that I had many Marine friends, and I would be very upset if they went over there and ended up dead, and I wondered aloud why it is so difficult for our troops to stabilize the situation over there. I honestly wonder that; I'm not there, I don't see what they see, I have no idea what they are facing. Apparently, this is the wrong thing to wonder aloud, because I received a thirty-minute tirade about how Saddam was going to kill us all with weapons of mass destruction.
How does this man get so fired up about these things when the only information he is getting is from the 10:00 Houston news? I know he hasn't researched the issue; he's just not smart enough to pick up a newspaper or figure out how to get on the Internet. I'm not saying his opinion is wrong or right, I'm just saying that it seems to be UNRESEARCHED.
I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you're going to try to ram your ideas down my throat, at least have a few facts to back you up, quote a few reputable sources, and make me think something besides "My God, not another blind idiot following the herd..."
Chances are, you'll just be wasting your breath anyway, because I still haven't found anything to believe in.
I am a classic fence-sitter. I can see both sides of almost any issue. That makes it awfully hard to believe in anything, or feel passionate about something. About the only thing I get seriously worked up about is the choice of typefaces in advertising, and even I know that it is all relative to the eye of the beholder. So, to be around someone who truly believes in something with the depth of their being fascinates me. How do people get like that? Why don't I?
I had an discussion (I call it that, the person I was talking to might call it an argument) with a die-hard Republican about the war in Iraq. Now, I don't go into these situations intending to upset anyone; I usually take a neutral stance and let everyone else around me fight about it. It's a good way to assess the argument and hear relative facts about both sides before I make a decision. However, there was no one else around during this particular conversation, so that left me to play devil's advocate.
"Do you think we should be there, or are you a stupid liberal, too?"
With a lead-in like that, where are you supposed to go? Where's a die-hard Democrat when I need one? I told this man that I had many Marine friends, and I would be very upset if they went over there and ended up dead, and I wondered aloud why it is so difficult for our troops to stabilize the situation over there. I honestly wonder that; I'm not there, I don't see what they see, I have no idea what they are facing. Apparently, this is the wrong thing to wonder aloud, because I received a thirty-minute tirade about how Saddam was going to kill us all with weapons of mass destruction.
How does this man get so fired up about these things when the only information he is getting is from the 10:00 Houston news? I know he hasn't researched the issue; he's just not smart enough to pick up a newspaper or figure out how to get on the Internet. I'm not saying his opinion is wrong or right, I'm just saying that it seems to be UNRESEARCHED.
I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you're going to try to ram your ideas down my throat, at least have a few facts to back you up, quote a few reputable sources, and make me think something besides "My God, not another blind idiot following the herd..."
Chances are, you'll just be wasting your breath anyway, because I still haven't found anything to believe in.
posted by Kristie at 8:38 AM
1 Comments:
Your friend seems to intense in his ideas. Being in the middle isn't a bad place to be sometimes. Please allow me to shed some facts. Why can't our troops stabalize Iraq? It really isn't as bad as the news media makes it seem. One of my oldest friends is over there and he's told me (as has many soldiers on news shows and talk shows) that the population loves our troops, wants us there, and doesn't want us to leave too soon. These 'insurgents' are really terrorists mostly from other nations who don't want a free nation in the middle east. That would screwu up the Islamo-facist program. The news is keeping a tally on Americans killed, but not on bad guys killed, schools built, jobs created, people freed, etc. Liberating a nation then putting it on the democratic path is never easy, look at western Europe after WWII. The difference back then is the press corps back then actually supported this country.
Saddam did have WMDs. He used them on his own people and Iran. Everyone knew this, republican and democrat. Where did they go? He had years to get rid of them with 12 UN resolutions which he ignored. He had them, we just don't know what happened to them. He was ordered by the UN to account for them, which he didn't. The point of Iraq is that is a focal point in the war on terrorism. With a free republic in the middle east, that will give us an ally and the terrorists a major headache. The populations of the other Arab nations will see that it's not the west that keeps them in poverty, but their corrupt leadership and that's why the terrorists don't want us to succeed over there.
Sorry to be long winded, hope I gave you some good points.
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