• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

What Extremist Views Do You Admit To Having?

Luke T.

Unregistered
L
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
14,716
PART I

Rule number one: Do NOT answer the topic title question for someone else! This is a confessional, not an interrogation room.

I have started this topic because of Jas' topic on one night stands and the surprising puritanical responses from some people I would least have expected it from.

I don't know if you guys are all aware of this, but the PCE (this) forum has gotten a reputation amongst the rest of the JREF fora as being the meanest, baddest part of JREF. Sort of like Chicago during Prohibition. The tourists are afraid to visit.

So I guess some of us are a little extreme. That's the buzz anyway.

Time to fess up. What do you admit to being a little too emotional/irrational about?


PART II

If you are too cowardly to admit what you are irrational about (BAIT!), then just tell us if there is something you support or oppose that is uncharacteristic for someone on your side of the political spectrum. Don't give me some lame crap about how you are an "independent" (MORE BAIT!).

Okay. I'll go first.

Part I: I'm a rabid pro-lifer. Well, maybe not rabid, as I am currently not chained to an abortion clinic, but I think that might be something I would be willing to do. Some of you probably know the quickest way to get Luke T.'s blood up is to bring up abortion already. I didn't say this was something that had to be a secret.

Part II: I am a conservative. What I think is uncharacteristic of me is that I favor the legalization of marijuana.

Right. Your turn.

Let's not get too far off the track and start telling each other what morons we are for believing what we believe. The last thing we need is another middleeastabortionguncontrollibertarian topic.
 
I believe people should have to provide picture ID (that's not the extreme part) and proof of gun ownership (that is) to vote. OK, it's not extreme in Switzerland, but it's pretty radical here. I'm sure others will have similar things which are radical in their areas but not in other (actual, civilized) places.

I'm also open to the idea that tax increases must be approved by voters, the vote open only to people who pay some specified amount of taxes, but I don't know how such a thing would work.
 
I'm extremely pro-choice (can't legislate women's bodies) but I am in favor of the death penalty.

Charlie (kill em before birth or when they screw up) Monoxide
 
Extreme? Hmm...I guess I'm extremely moderate. And because the right is running everything, I tend to sound more liberal because I want to see more balance. But it really depends on the issue, so...

I'll never understand why alcohol is legal and marijuana is not. Nope, I don't do the stuff today, but have a little in the past, and I just don't get it. It's idiotic to me. To an extreme.
 
Part I: I really, really, really distrust religion coming anywhere near politics. For that matter, I am distrustful to the point of paranoid about religion and religious people in general.

I also tend to start with a presumption of guilt when regarding politicians. That is, I presume them to be corrupt, dishonest lying weasels until they give me reson to believe otherwise, instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt until they do something wrong.

It's irrational, I admit it, but both those stances seem safer to me than their opposites.


Part II: Though I probably lean toward the left I am a big time supporter of the death penalty. Some crimes are such that their is no rehabilitation possible, and no amount of jail time is sufficient punishment.
 
Part I - I think that all religous people are part wobbie.


Part II - I don't want to recieve or donate organs.
 
I'm not extreme. Everyone else is extreme.

Part I: Cell phone use while driving. I'll hang up on you if I even think you're DWC.

Part II: As conservative as I am, I can't think of a good reason gay marriage should be illegal.
 
  • That no laws should be passed without a 9/10 supermajority. If you can't get 9 of 10 people to believe something should be illegal, then it probably shouldn't.
  • That all laws should have a 5 year max auto-sunset, unless renewed, again by a 9/10 supermajority. This applies retroactively.
  • That once humanity invents methods to resurrect people, all deceased politicians who promised big debt, and the people who voted for them, shall be put to work to pay it all off.
  • That the government should fund community centers where middle aged women can meet up with high school and college lads to educate them.

Ok, I give. I was just kidding about the first 3.
 
I think that nearly all of Africa should be invaded and openly ruled by outsiders until its AIDS crisis is over, its locals achieve predetermined (high) levels of literacy and general education as well as predetermined (high) levels of infrastructure development and technological advancement.

That extremist enough for you? I can go further:

I would prefer that the neoliberal West ban together to accomplish this, but it would suit me just fine if China did it with the goal of establishing Communist governments in Africa.
 
Beerina said:


That all laws should have a 5 year max auto-sunset, unless renewed, again by a 9/10 supermajority. This applies retroactively.
Click to expand...

I vaguely seem to recall one of my colege history professors saying that Thomas Jefferson had a similar idea, but his time scale was more on the order of 20 years, and everything expiring all at onece. The idea being that every generation would then start out with a clean slate to create whatever government suited them best.
 
tough

Well, that's kind of tough. It's like asking "what do you believe in that you don't believe in?" I am an extremist regarding personal liberty and self ownership and free expression. I believe, like Barry Goldwater did, that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. (mind you, I don't accept the premise that curtailing liberty is in any way and in any circumstance equivalent to protecting liberty, by which I mean I don't accept the notion that it is possible to curtail freedom in order to protect it - the Orwellian sense in which the term liberty is used in recent years.) Bush and co are big on talking about defending the "homeland" - as though what America really is is just a piece of real estate. What makes America distinct from most of the world are the principles on which it was founded. Somehow Bush can talk about defending the country while specifically attacking the very principles ("free speech zones" etc. and on and on and on...) which make it worth defending.

I believe absolutely in the first amendment and while I may not be courageous enough to die for your right to hold me and everything I stand for up for public ridicule, I believe absolutely in your right to do that. I believe absolutely in your right to produce art and literature and expression that I find absolutely repugnant and completely unredeeming. This is where the rub comes however. What if what you are advocating is the restriction of the right to advocate what you wish? Obviously, I would find that position incompatible with a free society. But a distinction has to be drawn between the right to advocate a position and the power to enforce it on others.

I think I am an extremist in precisely the same way the American founders were and Thomas Jefferson was. I believe the fact that the founders were not able to fully live up to their creed (something they themselves were well aware of) that in no way delegitimizes the principles behind the creed itself. Even they could not fully grasp the implications of the radical notion that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights - but they knew the principle was sound and believed we would come to live up to that creed.

I apologize for going on. I just got back from Philadelphia and visiting Independence Hall and stood in the very rooms where Jefferson and Franklin and Washington stood and where the Declaration and the Constitution were created and signed. For me it was the equivalent of a religious experience.
 
I) I’m obsessively pro equal rights for couples and their kids regardless of the genders involved, and am certainly in a position to be irrational about it (still, not nearly as concerned with the word “marriage” applying to gays in the law).

II) Not sure where on the political spectrum I fall. Pro choice in the 1st trimester, I get nervous around the 2nd, and pro-life in the 3rd, unless it’s to save a life. I’m a gun owner. I’d be unreservedly for the death penalty if guilt could be found without error. I’m not for hate crime laws, and don’t believe “diversity” and “tolerance” are absolute goods. I’d be fine with legalizing marijuana, but not substances like heroin or meth. I generally distrust government, want a smaller federal government, and lower taxes, but would rather pay first to lessen the burden of our national debt on the next generation. I don’t want my kids taught about sex or indoctrinated into a religion at school. If I said I was independent, that’d be lame crap. :)
 
OK, in no particular order:

1. Doctor-assisted infanticide should be legal as an option to parent/s up until the child has become self-aware (3-4 years old).

2. The Constitution should only be amended with the unamious consent of Congress. Ditto declarations of war and all other military actions, with the exception of when the U.S. has been directly attacked. All federal laws should only be passed with a 3/4 majority and have a sunset clause.

3. A bicameral legislature is not a sufficent legislative barrier. We need at least 4 houses.

4. The method we choose to elect our representatives leads to disenfranchisment for many. Anyone who wants to run for congressional office get's the seat provided they get the signatures of a X amount of American citizens (5,000, 10,000, etc.). No districts. No winner-take-all. If you live in New York, and you want some guy in Texas who you agree with to represent you, why shouldn't he?

5. Representatives who serve in Congress should only receive a stipend to cover basic living expenses. If they want more money, they have to get a real, private sector, job.

6. Any Representative or government employee who submits, votes, or enforces a law that is found to be unconstitutional should be stripped of office and made to serve a prison term of no less than 10 years.

7. The U.S. Armed Forces should be charged with defending the U.S. and the U.S. only. If a foreign nation wants to use U.S. forces for any reason, they must get congressional approval (see 2 above) and pay for their use.

8. State approval of marriage violates the establishment clause. Marriage should be a private contract between two (or more ;) ) people.

9. Dueling should be allowed as a means to settle civil disputes, provided that both parties agree and a judge officiates.

10. If we can't carry guns in public, can we at least carry swords?

I'll add more as I think of them.
 
Okay, my extreme position is I think abortion should be legal until the kid has moved out of the house and is living on his/her own.

There, I've said it.
 
Mark A. Siefert said:

1. Doctor-assisted infanticide should be legal as an option to parent/s up until the child has become self-aware (3-4 years old).
Click to expand...

Just want some clarification. Is this regarding children with birth defects, or all kids? I ask because my kids were self-aware well before 3, which is why I thought maybe you mean kids with birth defects.
 
Luke T. said:
Just want some clarification. Is this regarding children with birth defects, or all kids? I ask because my kids were self-aware well before 3, which is why I thought maybe you mean kids with birth defects.
Click to expand...

OK, I'll revise that: Birth defects, severe mental handicap, or terminal illness.
 
Guns - rabidly anti-guns, it’s an emotional thing not rational.

Any child having a child is given the choice - abort or adopt.
 
When not upset or condemning Bush for Iraq and how it has been mishandled and the wrong war in the wrong place...I secretly think, at times, that it might not be so bad an idea to invade and blow North Korea off the face of the earth, or possibly invade Zimbabwe in order to save it from itself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom