Timing -- excellent point on the phone booth thing...you're certainly entitled to input any commentary on what i say here. second...i am not, in any way, attempting to "express concern" about this issue. frankly, i'm not concerned. people can look at the same fact scenarios and read in two entirely different views. clearly that's where you and i are on this one. that's fine with me. i don't need you to think like i do. my point...again...is best illustrated through a line in the article posted by rimrocker: "It is of course open to speculation as to whether the original blocking of the content in question was malicious or an honest mistake." it is "open to speculation" -- you see it one way..i see it another. cool as christmas. have a good day.
Max, as i understand it, your position re: the war/election is this...I really am trying to be genuine here, so if I', wrong, I apologize, and welcome correction... You have concerns about Bush et al's conduct leading up to and in the war, and agree that there are several indications that there may have been a prejudgement to go to war, with the evidence sought not to make the decision, but to support a decision already made...with some manipulation/selectivity of that evidence along the way... ...however you feel that this is a possible interpretation, that it is not a certainty, but at most a probability, whereas re: abortion, you have an issue about which you have no doubt, no grey area, etc...and as such you will support Bush for a certainty ( abortion), rather than support someone else because of a possibility( the war)...is that pretty accurate? If so, a couple of comments, and a question. Question first: If it becomespretty much a certainty that this administration lied to us, manipulated us, and only sought evidence to support a decision it had alreafy made re: the war...I say if on the grounds that you feel it hasn't already been shown to be so for certain, with which i disagree, but granted your doubt, if that doubt is resolved, with all of the ramifications that it involves regarding Bush's foreign policy, where he sees our place in the world, our accountability for our actions, his responsibility to the people, and what the future may hold with him in charge...and moreover, what message that would send to future leaders...would you still support him because of abortion? Would you still see abortion as the greater evil? Comments: Max, you know I have at times been impressed with your seeming open-mindedness about the facts...certainly you don't bobble-head to whatever Bush says like some...but on the other hand, I have to agree that your occassional admissions of concern never seem to go anywhere...It's like you're Sully on the X-Files...you don't seem to allow for what the things that do concern you indicate, in terms of pattern and perception, and the next time something questionable regarding Bush and the war is raised, you seem to revert right back to giving him the benefit of the doubt, short of conclusive evidence otherwise...Like Sully, despite having seen many paranormal experinces, her first reaction to any suggestion of another paranormal experience would be to dismiss it, and say there had to be another explanation... So, while I have been impressed with your occassionally very open-minded admissions of " Wow..if that's true, it's very distressing." etc., ultimately it seems to be forgotten by the time the next issue is raised, and I know you are smarter than to not see patterns or indications of priority in behaviour... As such, while I think it unfair to say that you avoid the issue of specific circumstances, I can see how people could percive you to be avoiding the implications of what you have already seen in a larger sense,and how that might indicate an unwillingness to address future events with those implications in mind... I really like you, so I hope this isn't taken as an attack, but it is something I have seen and felt for quite a wile, and have often considered how I should, or indeed if I should raise it. As it seems relevant to the current discussion, I thought now was appropriate. If I felt you were a bobble-head, I wouldn't bother...
macbeth -- you've posted that concern before....thanks for the kind words, by the way...but i'm not sure what you would have me do. be more vocal here in my criticism of the administration??...ummm, i think that's being handled quite well. i'm not the magic decision-maker here. other than being concerned and having that affect who i vote for, what would you have me do personally? wring my hands more vocally here??? take time off from work, family, church, etc to picket around the galleria area with signs that say, "i'm concerned"?? what are you asking me to do? i don't feel as passionate in my concerns for the administration as i do for my concerns with abortion. and because i view that particular issue on a pretty grand scale, it is very difficult for me to be objective past it. call that a limitation..call it a passion...call it whatever...it just is. there are many other things i'm tons more passionate about, as well.
I wil defuse this situation by saying that when he compared you to Sully from the X-Files, he actually meant to compare you to Sulla, former Roman Consul:
that sounds like me exactly...i'm sure all my closest friends and family would describe me exactly that way. no integrity at all...completely wishy-washy...totally unpredictable.
I'm sure Max is a facinating character and worthy of study, but when did this thread's title change to... "Psychoanalyze Max" Leave the guy alone... it's not like his neuroses aren't evident to everyone.
"Let me tell you somehow about this Max. He is, in addition to being an, um, upstalwart lawyer from Houston Universe, ... well, he is what we call -- that is, he gets threads unrailed. In the whitehouse, we call him what he is and that is that he is an unrailer."
As i wrote this it occurred to me that I may have expressed something like this in the past, but I have, frankly, been dealing with some fairly serious stuff in my life lately, and sorry if I repeated myself. As far as what I would have you do, it's sort of a split issue. On the one hand, you arer correct, in that I suppose the implication of what I'm saying is, in some way, that I feel that the war, the manipulation, and what it means should be something about which people I respect would be passionate. I feel that, right now, as we speak, through actions like this war, we are altering the path this nations takes from here on in this world, and it's very the worse...Is it right that i expect that of you? I don't know, probably not. But, as with your feelings about abortion, it's there irrespective of whether or not I feel it is appropriate; I find it inconcievable that an open-minded intelligent person would see the facts as they are and not be seriously, passionately concerned. I acknowledge the arrogance of that assumption, but I also stand by it. But on the other hand, I suppose what I would realisticaly hope for would be an aversion to the Scully attitude; not wringing the hands, but weighing the facts so that the next time something comes up your immeditate response to people weighing them in terms of the established pattern wouldn't be bemused incredulity. I sort of see you, Max, as unfair as this is to you, as representing hope for those who don't really want to see what is happening, but are honest and intelligent enough to do so in spite of your wants...I have little hope that the automatics will ever ask the questions...in fact Rummy's recent leak showed that even he, at least, is asking some of the questions that most of the ardent Bush supporters in here won't...but I do have hope that people like you and Cohen will...so maybe that is why I seem to dweel so much on your responses, or be as dissapointed so much in the fact that they don't seem to have any staying power...Again, you never aksed for this position, and it's not a reasonable place to put you, but I guess I have seen you and others like you as representative of who needs to be convinced for the sake of the nation and the world. Those already opposed aren't enough to save us, and those blindly committed the other way are never going to change...so it's those with any kind of flexibility that matter right now.
Hey Max, I gotta tell you I was very heartened by your replies in the Powell thread. Maybe MacBeth does think too much about you. Maybe I do too. But I think it's understandable. I really do hate what this administration has done. Everyone knows that. But I've been blown away by their dishonesty. The only thing that's blown me away more is people's ability to deny it. And you don't do that. If you showed me half of these anti-Bush threads six months ago, I'd tell you they were posted by lunatics obsessed with conspiracy theories. Even mine. They are just that amazing. The thing is they're true. As unbelievable as that seems. As unbelievable as it seems that Powell, for example, would knowingly deceive the UN. I really never thought he'd do that. And the Plame thing? I mean, Jiminy Cricket, that's incredible. I'd never have believed it if it hadn't happened. After all these stories then (and they just keep coming), it is incredible that so many self-identified conservatives can keep denying something is horribly wrong here. You're one of the few who doesn't blindly deny this stuff and, as such, you're cast into a position in the front of my mind and MacBeth's when we try and understand the right wing's position on this war. The only other position I can half respect from the right is DaDakota's: Yes, he's probably lying about everything but I don't care. I can't believe that's his position. It really boggles the mind, but at least he's not pretending there hasn't been serious deception. You acknowledge the probability of deception, at least in some of the important areas, and also say it bothers you. You shouldn't stand out for that position, but you do. There just aren't enough people from your side thinking the way you are on this. As a result, folks like MacBeth and me put some kind of hope for the future in folks like you. Maybe not a fair position, but hey, it's a BBS. It doesn't matter anyway. So, you know. Sorry. And thanks.
