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Got a bit shook up today [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-04
I believe that I qualify as a center left Democrat. Social libertarian. I believe that a government that is responsive (key word) to it’s citizens can be a source of good works to help society (government is what we determine to do collectively). It takes a reasonably powerful government to be able to place limits on the uber wealthy so that their excesses do not harm society. I’m also very much classically conservative in the sense that I abhor waste — particularly wasted human potential. While I recognize that some people will always require more support than others, the goal should be to give people the tools whereby they can best support themselves & thereby contribute to society.
That’s a rough outline of my values.
I enjoy the website Quora. I like to pretend that I know stuff & I am generally curious about how people answer various kinds of questions on the social, scientific & societal questions that interest me. I sometimes enjoy engaging with people with whom I disagree because I’m a firm believer in the principle that you learn more from people who see the world differently than from people who rubber stamp my own concepts.
I came across a post:
qr.ae/…
Where the respondent wrote what appeared to be an intelligent & well considered response claiming that anthropogenic climate change is unimportant & he, as a civil engineer, pointed out that he had worked on sea wall projects in the Seattle area & that there had been no significant changes in local sea level. Furthermore, when the San Juan de Fuca plate does it’s inevitable big slip, manifesting the 9.0 earthquake & ensuing disaster, climate change will be comparably irrelevant.
As it seemed that I was engaging with an intelligent person, I responded with my standard approach to climate skeptics of: acknowledging that climate is very complex, but isn’t it enough to recognize that we are essentially engaging in a global experiment in geo-engineering (50% increase in the 3rd most chemically active constituent of our atmosphere over a period of 150 years) of our only habitable planet while truly lacking the expertise to control such an experiment?
Initially, he responded civilly, disagreeing with my concerns while deflecting from my main point regarding geo-engineering. I tried 3 times to bring him to answer my main point until finally I got:
By endlessly typing in a futile attempt to reason with you and your comrades, it’s keeping me from blogging about things that really really matter. Things like Jewish Supremacy and why Merrick Garland sees white supremacy as the nation’s greatest threat. Jewish Supremacy or white Supremacy - you can’t have both.
I do not consider myself particularly secular & my faith is very important to me, I value the words of Jesus (as well as Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Rumi & others) & believe that many “Christians” misinterpret important parts of his message. Nonetheless, while I am not observant of my parent’s religion, the fact is that I was born to Jewish parents. Being of Jewish heritage, it came as quite a shock that an otherwise intelligent seeming, well educated individual could promote such fear. I understand that poor assumptions about the world can lead an intelligent person to bad conclusions but to have it thrown in my face is still quite startling. I didn’t ask him his opinion of MTG or LB but I think I already know.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/4/2185218/-Got-a-bit-shook-up-today
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