The New Road

Taking it to the extremes

KSFO, our local super-fascist AM station, has ads on billboards and buses all around town that say this:

Support the troops
Stop the war now

I say yes to both. I support the troops, and I want them to leave right now. The only people who can bring peace to Iraq are Iraqis. 47% of Iraqis support an active war against Americans. The Iraqis are at war with us. It's not Al Qaida who is killing us there, it's Iraqis. There are only 1,000 Al Qaida in Iraq. This notion that if we leave that the 1,000 Al Qaida will take over Iraq is nonsense.

You could say that 'Stop the war now' is legitimately the view on the other side. But it's shown in the worst possible light. It's like saying 'pro-abortion'. Nobody I know is pro-abortion. I think it's sad when someone has an abortion, but I support their right to choose to take that action. So I am 'pro-choice'.

This is just a rhetorical game that conservatives play where they take a question and put it in the most favorable light for themselves, and put the counter argument in the worst possible light. It's insulting and degrading, but conservatives don't mind that since they are most often the ones doing the degrading.

But two can play at this game. Here we go!

On Iraq:

Iraqis bring peace to Iraq
Impose draft, war forever

On Iran:

Diplomacy with Iran
Invade Iran today

On abortion:

Support personal choice
Baptist rules for everyone

On gun control:

Enforce reasonable gun laws
Give Uzis to prisoners in jail

On prayer in schools:

Support religious freedom
Enforced religious education

On freedom of religion:

Support first amendment
Concentration camps for non-Baptists

On social security:

Fix social security
Elderly die in streets

On poverty:

Help the poor
Exterminate the poor

On wiretapping:

Wiretaps with warrants
President is above all laws

On bribery scandals:

Uphold bribery laws
Government by rich, for rich

On elections:

Fair elections
One party rule, like Communism

On intelligent design:

Science in school, religion in church
Earth is flat

On a social safety net:

Reasonable social safety net
You fail, you die

(Ed. Note: I would have like to have written one about Osama Bin Laden, where on one side you had "Kill Osama Bin Laden", which I fully support. But I couldn't write the other side. What the hell are the Bushies doing about Osama? Nothing. Why? He should be dead. Six feet under. In a pine box. Up in ashes. Gone. Dead. Forever.)

These questions where the counter-point is taken to the extreme are stupid. All of us will fall somewhere in the center. No thinking religious believer says that religion should be forced on anyone, and no thinking secularist believes there should be no churches. Religion is good if that is what you want. Not having a religion is ok too. It's a personal choice. Isn't that what America is about? I get to be me and you get to be you. And as long as we play nice together everything is cool.

I had a boss once who was extremely conservative on the technology side, which was bad given his position as lead engineer. Whenever I would bring up a new technique or design that I proposed using in a limited way, he would always take my ideas to the extreme. Which of course would imply lots of risk and time spent on what wouldn't be customer visible benefit. I would end up looking the fool, and he would be the pragmatic hero once again. In the end I did what all of the other engineers did, shut up, and innovation at that company died and remains dead today.