Posted on 05/20/2009 2:10:08 PM PDT by FreeKeys
Do you remember when Chrissy Matthews was berating Zell Miller at the 2004 Republican convention for something that he said? (Chrissy was taking it very literally).
Zell responded, “You do know what a metaphor is, don’t you Chris”?
Penn Jillette may not be the most sophisticated speaker (which is both good and bad), but he seemed to be making an appropriate use of metaphor.
IMHO, his point was that one should strive for consistency between their expressed opinions and their actions. That doesn’t sound too nutty to me.
This guy speaks in language so vulgar, he is impossible to listen to, even though he has good points. He is also violently Anti-Christian, calling the Bible bullshit.
I think he's referring to hypocrisy i.e. someone who thinks it is immoral to kill cattle but still eats steak.
Or someone who thinks it's immoral for someone else to kill to rescue another but would want that someone else to kill if he was the one needing rescue.
Can I take the kids?
I’m more convinced every day that the Republicans and the Democrats are morphing into the WWE: lots of bluster, lots of “rivalry”, but everyone gets to stick around for next month’s show, and both the heroes and villains get their paychecks from the same boyz.
No, I didn’t mean to be hostile. A lot of times I see that though; a generic attack on a faceless group. CNN does it a lot, they create a big black “they” cloud which they can then demonize in generic ways. It seemed by your statement that you had some intent, but it seemed like that.
Sometimes people calling themselves “libertarian” use that technique on “social conservatives”, but generally they just want some license for their particular vice: drugs, butt****ing boys, whatever.
The whole point about being a conservative is it should transcend whatever dumb vice you might have. You recognize that societal acceptance of sodomites, or legal drugs is detrimental to society, and something the KGB pushed bigtime for years, because it screws up society.
Even if you have a problem with something like porn, you should recognize that it’s a problem, and ideally you wouldn’t be doing it, and that a country permeated with porn is not going to be a stable society. It’s just a principle of self-protection. You want to survive, so you want the country to survive. You might have a porn addiction, but you don’t want to see it promoted. A lot of decent conservatives on this site have a problem with porn. But I hope that most of them would realize that America is on the brink of a demographics nightmare and porn isn’t helping with that. For example.
Perhaps he would have been better off making his case by speaking to the death penalty instead.
Government has but one tool - the gun. Just as all problems look like nails if your only tool is a hammer, all resistance to government looks like crime if your only tool is a gun.
Just look what happened to marriage when people looked for government for help in raising children. We get gay "marriage."
Render unto the Lord...
As a libertarian (small l) I would certainly be willing to compromise on the drug issue.
We could keep those drugs illegal in the same way they were in, say the 1950's...go to jail if you are dealing or publicly under the influence.
But we have to get rid of the no-knock raids, the asset forfeitures, and the local cops tricked out like military commandos.
I once believed that. Without the love of others I might never have seen the light, so to speak.
It’s a bad metaphor for what he’s trying to say. The issue of the Death Penalty would have provided a clearer example.
It's a little convoluted.
A more proper argument is that if you find it immoral to kill a cow to eat or for leather or for birth control, etc, then it doesn't matter if you do not EAT beef, that cows are harvested in this world is immoral.
Now then, if you oppose abortion on the grounds that it violates the rights of the unborn growing children, then taking a stance "not to have an abortion" still does nothing to end the immorality of 50 million dead people.
The mother's body ends at the umbilical cord, where one or more babies are growing. We recognize that a woman who smokes, dopes, or drinks or even takes necessary medications, may be doing her child physical harm if she does these things during her pregnancy. Can the mother be convicted of child abuse for doing these things if it isn't really a baby? If she abused her own body PRIOR to becoming pregnant, she would be unlikely to be charged with child abuse for any problems her child has during a later pregnancy.
The father is obligated to the child for 18 years if the mother becomes pregnant but the woman is permitted to opt out of her own obligations to that same child on demand.
He did seem to have trouble trying to articulate his thought.
A true libertarian doesn’t believe in public schools anyway. If we have to educate the children, it should be with vouchers only, where parents could choose a parochial school if they wish. That is my utopia.
Also see later post here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2254980/posts?page=26#26
I believe that. That’s great. Every conservative who’s up on the issue believes in that
I don’t know of these people who find it immoral to kill animals for food yet eat them.
I do find people who find it immoral to kill animals for food or clothing and who only eat veggies.
I do find people who are UNwilling to confront themselves with the aftermath of abortions (aborted fetuses) and yet who insist that it is just tissue and not human.
“Like laws against sodomy”
OK but there are no (enforced at least) laws against sodomy, and no credible attempt to create such laws. So do you have an actual example? Because I think I’m the one against government intervention here. I think the conservative is the real “libertarian” here, and the “libertarian” is something quite undefined and largely a fudge.
Don't remember...I believe there is some adult content and 4 letter words, but it was 2 years ago and my memory is fuzzy. http://www.pennandteller.com/
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