The most telling aspect of the variety of answers presented: Very few of you actually tried to answer the question. There was a lot of deflection, a lot of attempts to turn it around an attack others...but very few honestly confronted the questions.

Kudos to those that had the integrity to do so. Shame on those that didn't...and yet, such a response was *wholly* predictable and expected.

In other words...it's difficult to face your personal hypocrisies head on, isn't it? :P

Challenges for krellin, let me know when you tick them off

1 insure your car with an unregulated insurance company
2 go to Harlem and wear a sandwich board with "I want to call black people Niggers" on it.
3 throw out all goods you own that could possibly have been made by people on minimum wage, or have the protection of labor laws.
4 distroy all your goods that could have been made with the assistance of a govt grant - including firearms
Let me know when list is complete and I'll be happy to add to it

The thing is we all live in societies that we would want to change in some way. Some of us are passionate enough to effect change, others wish for a better world but don't want to or feel they can't make a difference. What we all do is accept the prevailing conditions we live in.

I may want equal television coverage of woman's soccer on TV, but if someone wanted to pay me £6m a year to lead the line for the Villa, I'd take it dispite the fact that my sisters would be paid £100 per week for putting the same effort into playing for Doncaster Belles. Would I perceive myself as being a self serving, hypocritical scumbag of a sell-out? Maybe, but think of the women I could bed with £6m a week and a celebrity lifestyle.

5 "Just two of my many questions..." Learn to count.

@Krellin, i guess you'd claim that my answer is pure denial.

How and ever, i think you'll find that your question was framed in such a way as to form biased answers. It was not a fair and balance proposition - hence the attacks. You sought conflict in the form of the question and thus (unsurprisingly) got what you were looking for.

Well done! Would you like an honest conversation about human decision making?? or would you rather sit on your high horse and reinforce your own views on 'those evil liberls'?

Good questions they are. I think they got a couple of promising responses too.

I'll pick and spin on Maniac's, Hecks' and Jamie99's:
What we all do is accept the prevailing conditions we live in.
Whether Al Gore is a hypocrite is a problem for Al Gore, not a problem for environmentalists generally.

Unfortunately I think there is a deep problem at the bottom in this that rots the core of "alternative" movements.
I suppose I'll be unequivocally placed in the camp of the "environmentalists", but I think - as I have had reason to say before on this forum - that I am closer to Krellin than to most proclaimed "environmentalists".

There is - as Krellin is a good tracker of - too much denial of "prevailing conditions that we live in", too much pretensions. A human weakness involved is that people are too craving for to think they are fab in some way or the other - some for driving the finest car, others for being the most free-thinking rebel, in the spirit of Lenin or Bakunin... or the founding fathers... or even Obama...
Or what is more basic and common I suppose, simply to claim the right to a clear conscience. An array of "alternative" opinions and rituals develop to buy the users of them the right to claim an identity as something above simple products of the prevailing conditions.
Such absolute claims to a kind of spiritual redemption from the ruling system paralyze the ability to make any real, though they might be small, changes to lifestyle and ambition.

My bold guess from impressions of this forum is that Krellin probably is a man whose everyday behaviour and ambitions is less environment-damaging (I mean both the social and the physical environment) than the median liberl's.
If I'd make a half-random pick for the people I'd want for my "environmentalist" community I know Krellin would definitely be on the upper part of my list.

On a total sidetrack, I do think Krellin's criticism of Gore points out a fundamental flaw in the message preached by many environmentalists. There's such an emphasis on "alternative" energy... On fully replacing all our fossil fuels with hydro, or solar, or wind. In reality, the solutions are far easier: just use less. A self-proclaimed Green who uses his Prius to drive a 100-mile commute is doing far more damage than someone who drives 10 miles in a Chevy Silverado. Someone who heats a 12,000 square foot mansion with geothermal is wasting more resources than someone who heats a 900-square foot bungalow with coal. The best way to please a fiscal conservative AND an environmentalist is to just use less. Don't buy more house than you need, don't commute further than necessary, forego the luxuries you wouldn't really miss anyway. (Like people here in Maine who have air conditioners: wasteful! There are only like 3 days a year when you'd miss it, so suck it up, save some money, and go without!)

"The mortgage rate deduction is horrible public policy. It encourages you to borrow money instead of putting more money down. It encourages you to buy more home so you borrow more as well. The poorest Americans get the least benefit. The richest Americans living in mansions worth tens of millions get the biggest write offs. "

I agree completely with Emac, which suggests that we should all probably be on the lookout for four dudes on horses descending from the heavens.

Krellin you didn't answer me so I'll ask you again:

1. What do you think are the three greatest problems facing society today?

2. What are you currently PERSONALLY doing to go about solving each of these three problems?

@Orth - "How and ever, i think you'll find that your question was framed in such a way as to form biased answers. It was not a fair and balance proposition - hence the attacks. You sought conflict in the form of the question and thus (unsurprisingly) got what you were looking for.

Well done! Would you like an honest conversation about human decision making?? or would you rather sit on your high horse and reinforce your own views on 'those evil liberls'? "

I will only partially accept your premise that the questions were flawed -- they are not flawed as to the point being made: It is becoming ever more popular in our society for the "Liberal" causes to become *very* beliggerent. If you oppose homosexual marriage on a principled ground, such as your religion, you are a homophobe and a hater, which is absoutely NOT true. Most Christians I know believe in "love the sinner, hate the sin"...but it is all the rage in Liberal circle to cast aspersions and hatred on someone with a different view point. I'd recommend you look up social media on the upcoming Orson Scott Card "Ender's Game" movie, and the amount of vitriol being spilled against him for his beliefs...by problably the same people that wouldn't bat an eye at seeing a Woody Allan movie (the pedophile, Woody Allan, that is..)

If you are for oil exploration you are "trying to detroy the planet"...if you are agains the social welfare system you "want to see people starvign to death on the street".

So no...I fully reject your premise that the questions are not fairly framed. They are framed *exactly* as I wanted them framed, because *that* is how Liberals frame every discussion against Conservatives.

In fact, Conservatives do NOT want: to eat your babies; see you die on the street; see the world destoryed; etc...but you will all freely imply this in vitriolic language all the time, without second thought.

but when I turn the game on you? You cry foul. I reject your objections.


As for those that want to ask me questions, I reject them. That is not what this thread is about - it is not about krellin - it is about Liberals, and why they want to tell me how to live, invading all aspects of my life from what I should drive and eat to what beliefs I am safe to publicly express...and yet they clearly do not apply the same livign standards to themselves....so this thread is about Liberals and their fearful angry hypocrisy.

Your refusal to answer my question implies that you have no answer to it.

FWIW, you are *frequently* guilty of telling others how they should live their lives, Krellin.

@Jamie - no, my refusal to answer the question means that I am not going to particpate in yet another thread that becomes a "bash krellin" thread.

I did not singularly call out anyone in this thread - so those who choose to answer do so voluntarily. I will not be called out. This thread is about Liberals...and in typical Liberal fashion that standard defense is to turn the attack to others....Well done...almost...but I'm not playing your game.

I don't tell people how to live their lives -- I ask people to apply the principles they profess others should adhere to to themselves. And if I do tell someone how to live, it is to improve them from whatever damaged state they present themselves :P So take that!

@Krellin "I ask people to apply the principles they profess others should adhere to to themselves."

You were quite right when you said this, krellin. IN fact, this whole thread is about suggesting that Liberals live by their own principles.

@Krellin,
"So no...I fully reject your premise that the questions are not fairly framed. They are framed *exactly* as I wanted them framed, because *that* is how Liberals frame every discussion against Conservatives."

You and I have often had reasonable, open-minded discussions on honest and impartial questions that I've asked you in a genuine spirit of wanting to understand your views, and those are the best conversations I've had with anyone on this forum. Since you know I'm a Liberal and you know I'm even-handed in my discussions with you, I reject your assertion that Liberals ALWAYS frame the questions and discussions to benefit them. I reject it as untrue and, as you know it to be untrue, I also reject it as wholly insincere. When you want to have the kind of honest, reasonable, intelligent discussion we both know you're capable of, you know where to find me. If you want to strut your part as a half-assed Limbaugh-esque caricature of yourself, making a farce of your own finest virtues for the sake of your own exhibitionism, do it on your own time. I'm out of this conversation.

Wow...that just made this conversation that much more tense

@hecks....fine, I'm exaggerating a little...and when I say "a little" I mean a tiny little bit.

I suggest you watch the media and their portrayal of Conservatives and their views a little more closely. Watch how Conservative characters are portrayed in popular media (sit coms, etc) - always vilified as evil, stupid, etc. - and then ask your average moronic American what Conservatives stand for after feeding themselves on a steady diet of liberally-biased TV. And whatever you think about TV, truth is a disgustingly huge percentage of Americans feed their brains a *huge* diet of TV...and you think that doesn't affect their views and attitudes?

ON TV, if you openly state disagreement to homosexuality (love the sinner, hate the sin) and you are labelled the most hateful person ever. What I suggest is *far* more true than you want to admit. Do YOU do it? No...you are a good guy, it seems - I respect you a lot - but as a generalization, it's true. On TV, all "conservative businessmen" are out to screw everyone, teal the penny's from homeless people, etc. Give me a break.

Remember Sarah Palin? Sarah Palin was *villified* in the media. A funny skit on Saturday Night live was adopted as the truth by not just comedians, but news people, for all practical purposes. She shouldn't have been the VP candidate, but she is an intelligent, highly successful person -- *villified* on the left and slandered in horrible ways. This is typical.

So, I reject yoru rejection of my characterization. When you want to have a mature conversation about how conservatives are *really* viewed in this society and talked about by the popular media, let me know...in another thread.

This thread, though, is about Liberal hypocrisy.

@djakarta - nothign tense here - Hecks and I are good. disagreement does not mean tension or hate, OK?

Krellin, I have not attacked you in asking my question. The question I asked was not an attack.

I will attack you now, because you've just made a statement that is incorrect:

You say: "I did not singularly call out anyone in this thread."

That is a lie. You called out Bo_Sox. Your 6th post in the thread said:

"Bo telling me energy use is destroying the planet...but he won't do anything to conserve energy after screaming about the evils of energy...that's not just "I stole a cookie". It's just fucking obnoxious hypocrisy of the worst kind."

If that's not "calling someone out" I don't know what it is.

(And I don't care if you're right or wrong about Bo's stance, the point is that you DID call Bo out)

Let's not turn this into a fight...even if krellin did point out Bo, Bo can respond to that himself, and Hecks and krellin are having a good debate. Let them continue without personal attacks on anyone else.

@Jamie - I didn't say you attacked me...but if I start responding to all the *personal* questions directed specifically to me, this will become an "attack krellin" thread. I think everyone has had enough of that - let's not make this a personal attack thread, OK? Thanks.

I apologize for calling out Bo - i was using him as a typical example of a very common occurence.

Sorry Bo, and sorry to everyone else.

I can call Krellin out on his periodic histrionics without him taking offense. He knows what I mean, and he knows that when I say to find me when he wants to have a real conversation.

As to your next point, I won't go into full detail on what I think of Palin, but you'd have had better examples of conservatives being unfairly lampooned in Cheney, Thatcher, Bachmann, Gingrich, Lott, and Rove. Palin, in my mind, belongs with Trump and Rick Perry on the list of people who deserved what they got.

^^ should say, "...and he knows that I mean it when I say to find me when he wants to have a real conversation."

"conservatives being unfairly lampooned in Cheney, Thatcher, Bachmann, Gingrich, Lott, and Rove..."

Darth Cheny...lol Yeah, that wsw a good one.

Thank you for proving my point.

Now that you've taken my side, hecks, shall we continue?

@Krellin,
"I suggest you watch the media and their portrayal of Conservatives and their views a little more closely. Watch how Conservative characters are portrayed in popular media (sit coms, etc) - always vilified as evil, stupid, etc. - and then ask your average moronic American what Conservatives stand for after feeding themselves on a steady diet of liberally-biased TV. And whatever you think about TV, truth is a disgustingly huge percentage of Americans feed their brains a *huge* diet of TV...and you think that doesn't affect their views and attitudes?"

Perhaps someday I'll assemble a list of favorably-portrayed Conservatives in television. Or, more likely, a list of Conservatives portrayed as heartless killing machines and a parallel list of their corollary Liberals portrayed as brainless, spineless, new age buffoons... but today is not that someday. I have 3.5 hours til I'm on vacation, and have to get some things wrapped up.

I guess my overall point is that if TV Conservatives are the Heartless Tin Man, TV Liberals are either the Brainless Scarecrow or the Cowardly Lion. It's TV, man... they're *all* idiots.

@Krellin,
"Thank you for proving my point."
Let it never be said that I didn't give my opponent constructive feedback, even when I disagree.

Hecks - fair point - NOT. Most TV characters are liberal, and most are not the heartless tin man. But we can discuss this another day, another thread perhaps.

Soooo....why do Liberals tell me how to live (what to drive, what to eat, how and what energy to use) while seemingly failing at applying the same principles to their own lives?

Why NOT defer a promotion and ask that a woman recieve it instead to balance the ledger?

Why NOT forgo another round of krellin bashing and turn off the PC? lol After all, some tiny bird just seated to death in the blistering heat and died because of your carbon usage, you know...

"...bird just *sweated* to death..."