Quote Originally Posted by Torog
Howdy mrdevious,

Thanx for yer considered reply ! And being patient with me,enough to do so.
I'm sure you've been just as patient with me and my different views lol, so no worries.

Being raised in a conservative,Christian home and by a father who was very strict,does result in a certain degree of brain-washing,and I'm still working on countering such. I did not raise my child as strictly as I was raised,I used a combination of morals and moral absolutes,with my daughter. I tend to shy away from organized religion,these days..instead of just relying
on the critical thinking of a preacher,I rely on myself,to find the answers that I seek to Life. My old man,used to tell me that I think too much..that I just need to stop making excuses for not gitting the job done..so ya see,even when I was a child,I was thinking critically for myself,to some degree.
That's really good to hear that you're not just mirroring your parents, but learning from them and taking all their valuable lessons to heart Torog. Our parents are of course a very important part of who we become, and we all have plenty to learn from them, whether it be their mistakes or successes.

On instilling good moral values with your kids, I completely agree with you. Kids these days are getting awful in their lack of moral standards, and at only 21 I'm already seeing a generation gap, seeing the considerably lower moral stanards that kids seem to hold today than they did back in my day. It's sad really.
While our values may not be exactly the same, though certainly the same in some respects, I think I would raise my kids in similar ways. Instilling strong moral foundations, making a firm distinction of right from wrong, and teaching them how to be a productive member of society with a fulfilling and happy life; these are all important things.
When I was a kid I asked questions all the time too. Questions about the way the world works, questions about god, questions about how we can make this world a better place. Thankfully my parents let me ask all these questions as I grew up, and I discovered a lot of things about myself and my beliefs. I hope you'll let your kids do the same too, and something tells me with your experiences growing up, you will.

I do try and consider,what my detractors are saying..not all of it's bad. For example,the tv shows,Wife Swap,Trading Spouses and Extreme Home Makeover,are examples of liberals doing good,whether or not it's intentional or in-adverdent..the results are often positive.
hmmmm, I don't know if I'd call these shows liberalism, but I can see where you're coming from. I think people who are more prone to have a liberal mindset would make these kinds of shows, and often people twist the original ideology behind liberalism to allow whatever twist they want to throw into society. As I said, I think liberal thinking has resulted in our best inovations throughout history, as well as some of our worst. But keep in mind that the crap on television today is only a product of one branch of liberalism that's become popular in the states, albiet not the most possitive one.
There are some real possitive results that have come out of liberalism however (and certainly conservatism too). Like Classical Liberalism, which gave rise in the mid-18th century. Classical liberalism actually advocates that the government should be very limited in its involvement in our personal lives, and it should be up to the people to determine personal morality rather than our government. It encourages a lack of coercion in the various realms of life, such as free speech, religious freedom, the right to private property, and the right to political opposition. It was also the guiding principle for establishing equality of right under law; that is, everybody shall be equal under law regardless of race, religion, gender, or political affiliation. Many conservatives now hold these ideals too, but at one time they went against the established norms, against the "conservatives" of the day.
Then there is, sadly enough, a rise to many liberal ideas (particularily reform liberalism) that gave us stupid ideas like partial birth abortion, or the rediculous standards by which kids are taught in schools these days. A good example of this was a story I read a while back where 3 kids in Florida, in the 3rd grade, were suspended for a week because they were playing outside by shooting their fingers at each other like guns. The principle actually had the balls to say "the other children were frightened" by this. It's just incredible how things like this can get so far out of hand.

Personally I'm becoming really disguested with the decedence of society and how it's encouraged by television and the media. I see millions of people on American Idol sceaming in mindless hysteria over glittering lights and false idols, when the people we should be idolizing are those who are finding the real solutions to the worlds problems, those who work to make the world a better place through intelligent thought and real solutions, not just meaningless glittery contests for mass hypnosis of the populace. Of course I could go on and on with the magazines encouraging rediculous steryotypes of what we should look like, the majority of movies these days that encourage brainless stimulation through pop culture, rather than admiration of our intelligent and noble.

At any rate,I'll try to be more fair and open-minded and look for the good in folks..I usually do such,but given we are in a fight for the survival of the Free World..I find that I cannot countenance any excuses for allowing brutal dictators,to have any sort of reign.
You're absolutely right about that, brutal dictators should have no mercy as far as I'm concerned. But people like myself, who are against the current war in Iraq (I agree with the one in Afghanistan), aren't against it because we like the idea of Saddam Hussein remaining in power. Rather, I think the Iraq invasion was a very strategically poor choice, as well as a poor choice in making allies and not creating new enemies. Saddam may not have been friendly to us, but he was even less friendly to Iran, the real threat. Under his regime the country was kept together, not engulfed in civil war, and a force to counter Iran and keep them in check.
Now we have a democratic nation that is so weakened and unstable that it couldn't possible stand up against Iran in at least the next 20 years. Now we have all our military power tied in this civil war, keeping thecountry together, drawing their attention away form the greater threats of North Korea, Iran, and Syria. America is bankrupting itself trying to maintain a war that didn't need to be fought, and I don't know how they're going to find the funds to launch an invasion of Iran and North Korea, let alone take care of their own people.
Not to mention, when America came into Iraq and didn't find the WMD's that they promised the world were in there, they discredited themselves in the eyes of muslim youth. Young muslim men, who wouldn't have cared about America either way, are now seeing troops in their streets, civil war in their country, and friends and family being killed by American bombs. It's only natural, under such conditions, that a person would grow to hate the person who brought this upon them. If somebody invaded my country or your country, killed half my friends and family as well as yours, filled our streets with troops while our people dying all around us.... well, I'd bet you and I would both be taking up arms and fighting these people as well. And that is why a thousands more people now hate America, when they wouldn't have before. Saddam may have been a terrible dictator, but the hundreds of thousands of people getting killed in this war still had their homes and family in tact when he was in charge.

Have a good one ! :jointsmile:
Happy new year!