One more thing about that. The house that used the most mahogany by far was the doctor's house I referred to. I loved the guy. What, I'm going to get in his face and tell him what an eco-criminal he is?

And the choice of what to use, how big to make it was way out of my hands. If I had acted on some grand, lofty principle and walked away, it would have still gotten built, and I would have missed out on an excellent opportunity, in about 12 different ways. It's way, way tamer than say, a Nazi guard saying he was just following orders.

So please, Narwhal, I mean I like you and all, but please don't call me a hypocrite behind that.

...I just close my eyes and the patterns emerge--what can I say, it's a gift.

And here is yet another point I posed in response to one of your posts that you couldn't come up with a resonse for.

Once again, master of time and space:

I heard a quote from a rich person once: "At first money brings happiness, but after a while, it just brings more money."

This is one of the problems with unbridled, full on capitalism, IMO, that is, the tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer is almost built in. Hardcore Republicans will argue til doomsday that this is the way things are supposed to be but myself, I don't want to be a serf in someone's feudal landlord setup, nor do I think I would really want to be a landlord in same.

Imagine: would you rather have 5000 lbs of gold now (about $32 million) or 5000 pounds of gold magically deposited along with your bod in say, England of 562 A.D.? You might have more land and servants back then, but I submit that many of the advances in things like pain-free dentistry plus all sorts of trained technicians in various fields have arisen through quasi-socialist (GASP!) thangs like public education.

The GI bill is not something that arose from Republican Hoover after WW1, but from lefty Roosevelt after WW2 and many historians agree that it not only paid for itself many times over but played a large part in our post war prosperity.

As for Frist, I don't like the guy. I don't like people making ga-zillions off of HMOs while doctors are tearing their hair out over small cost limitations and people are forced to fork it over, employers sweat it out, etc. It reminds me a bit of Bechtel's attempts to corner the water market in Latin American countries. People got to have water. We -ell -ell, we'll make them pay through the nose for it. Bwaa - hah -ha -ha (Maniacal George Schultz laugh)

C'mon Bot! Show us what your made of!

But if Frist had hired you to panel his house with mahogany, then you'd have loved the guy.

Inability and choice are indistinguishable to you.

[QUOTE=narwhal]You can choose to dismiss the author, based upon their personal level of hypocrisy, but it surely doesn't mean the cause isn't right, just and true.

Who better to tear down the man, than someone on the inside...and besides, I'm not a bootlick.

I don't think so. I have a finely honed Bull$h!t detector which I picked up from my cowboy dad. Frist sets my back teeth on edge. The doctor I worked for was a class act.

Again Bot, you're employing flippancy because my arguement on the nature of money agitates your comfort zone.

You're right again Narwhal. I do get defensive. But I mean I'm in a no win here. If I try to deny the guy the right to earn and spend his money the way he wants, I'm a luddite. Or, if I actually do work for a guy I like even though I'm not sure it's the ultimately best course for humans to take on the planet, I'm a hypocrite.

...uh, that would be an MPA in justification, hypocrisy and self-indulgence. If you're going to make insinuations, at least get my academic title correct.

Hypocrisy, over indulgence, power, irresponsibility, abuse, all are faults within mankind! Few are innocent, all are effected! It's always been, and may always be, but without resistance, there may very well would be even more of an imbalance, so don't give up the fight, even if you border into being a hypocrite, it's just to what degree!

Like I said way long ago (last week?), I hope that everybody makes lots of money. Have at it. I don't care whether people get rich from HMO's, computer parts, widgets, I'm in favor of legalizing recreational drugs, you think I'm gonna get anxious about somebody making money off another's misery? Hah! I hope the nation has 10,000 people making money off HMO's nursing homes, and low-rent property. I also want 100,000 lawyers on the hunt, gunning for folks who screw-up other folks lives. I hope the lawyers get rich doing it, too!

So go ahead wringing your hands over rainforest destruction one day and accepting filthy lucre from pluotcrats the next. Whatever floats your boat.

Cute.

My point is, you never even remotely concede another's point. I don't expect you to gush with some, "Oh my god, how could I have been so blind as not to see it!"

OTOH, there can't be much give and take of ideas if one of the parties is convinced ahead of time that the other's thinking is deeply, deeply flawed and so why bother even examining the premise?

It's the old, "don't bother me with new evidence, I'm comfortable where I am," aka: Stuck.

And you think I'm like BHD only more erudite? :sun_smile

Oui... :sun_smile

Bot, Bot, Bot..... Like, who destroyed your dream, man?

Science, reason, experience.