Obama >>>>>>> Romney

I do not claim to speak for all forum members with what I am about to say, but I think a lot of them might agree with me:

I am just going to go ahead and fall right into this trap of yours one more time, Kylio, and hopefully say some things that just might improve what you get out of this forum, and as I do this, I am going to try and be nice about it (I'll explain what I mean in a minute).

The problem we have with you is not your ideology, your philosophy, or your morals or ethics. We don't have a problem with the people you claim to champion (the middle class, the lower class, the working class, the little guy, the proletariat, whatever you want to call him or her). The fact is that a good portion of us used to believe in the things you believe in. Others came from the aesthetically opposite side of yours: the Neocons, so it is not like we aren't listening to you or haven't walked in your shoes at one point (politically speaking).

There is one thing I am pretty certain about: we are probably going to disagree on a lot of these issues, but the degree to which you and anyone else on this forum agrees or disagrees is irrelevant to my point in this post. What is important, or at least what I value about this forum, is the give/take relationship that most people have here, and I think that usually this feeling of reciprocity is felt by the new comers that stumble onto our little nook of the net as well. If you've ever ventured onto any of the other threads found here besides your own, then you've found that there is no shortage of disagreements among even us Libertarians. Sure, these disagreements may be a slightly more nuanced than the ones you have with our ideas, but they are there. You can say a lot of things about us depending on the way you view our ideas (we can be cold, we can be stern, we can be arrogant), but one thing I don't think you can honestly charge most of us with is an unwillingness to give back when we take.

And, herein lies our problem with you: we don't get this reciprocity from you, so you can see why a debate with you (or really a lack thereof) can be frustrating to some of us. I think that by now you have probably realized, despite what you may think of our ideas, that we love debate and don't shy away from it. There are few things that brighten my day more than to log onto to these forums after work, and see someone post on these forums who totally disagrees with us, especially if they are obviously intelligent. It makes the activity of the back and fourth rebuttals so much more interesting. I would perfectly happy if we had 10 or 20 ardent Socialists or Marxists come onto these forums everyday and engage us in serious and friendly debate.

See, the goal never has to be convincing the other. If you believe in your ideas so strongly, then have them challenged by people who think oppositely, mend up areas where your arguments are weak. I know I have my own weaknesses, and so I go learn, which often results in a new opinion or idea I had never even considered. You think I am not all over other forums to both spread and challenge my ideas at the same time? Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Learn their arguments and all the nuances that go with them. If nothing else, it will make you a more intelligent, more learned person. Put in your perspective, doesn't the prospect of profiting off of all us "capitalist 1%ers" sound appealing to you. You can do so without ever changing your mind. Hell, I am fairly certain that I won't be convinced out of the ideas I now hold, but I am always open to the possibility of it happening. It's happened once, so maybe again. 

Here is the problem of your lack of reciprocity in more detail. One MO you seem to use quite often is this practice of posting mere assertions. Fine. We, and sometimes I, will act in good faith first, and take time out of our day to offer you rebuttals to these assertions, but for what? Only to receive no rebuttal back from you, no reply from you at all. How about your other MO, when you just post a series of heavily loaded, politically biased questions? Well, to these questions, we give you answers that we not only firmly believe in but are also willing to provide sources with data and/or theory that back up these beliefs. Again, we usually get no reply. If we do, it certainly isn't substantive; it's usually just more assertion. We don't mind your disagreement. We will take a firm disagreement over nothing at all any day, just engage us in that debate.

I've noticed a trend with you: after you are tired of an old thread, you post another one like this, saying things like,

greenbabe:

Romney's policies that I mentioned. You guys agree with them (other than the war), and history proves they don't work.

 Really? Either you are just fucking with us, or you have no willingness, or perhaps no ability, to even get to know something so basic as what we are for and against. After all the many threads you have started here, do you really think you can honestly claim we are for taxes on the poor? Out of everyone that frequents this forum, you are for more taxes than anyone else just by default alone.

 Look, all I am trying to say is maybe we should define what you can agree on with all of us: I assume that you want the best, most prosperous society achievable on this Earth; one that provides the best opportunities and greatest standard of living conceivable for each and every person. We want that also. I think almost everyone on this planet wants that. Most people are inherently good, I think. What we don't agree on are the best means by which to achieve that end, that most ideal society. That's ok. Thats what we debate for, to decipher truth. When finding truth is not at the forefront of your debate, its pointless to even do so.

That's all I want to say about that. I hope you will start participating in your threads more than an initial post and a couple two sentence replies. You have the potential to make this forum a little more interesting. I hope you choose to do so.

Thanks,

The Texas Trigger