Political Civility

An amazing thing happened the other day. I was playing WoW. (That's not the amazing part, just go with me on this.) I was hanging around Nagrand, grinding Kurenai rep when the subject of politics came up in chat. Now, let me first say, I'm a total troll. I'm sure all of us have a little troll in us, that comes out only to throw mindless stereotyping insults at people with differing views, primarily over the internet. But mine's much bigger than that. Luckily, I know that I have trollish tendencies, so I decided to leave general chat to avoid making an ass of myself. (This blog doesn't count, it's not aimed at anybody in particular!)

About a half-hour of slaying Ogres later, I decide to try and see if they're done making life miserable. Unfortunately I got caught up in the argument--The main subject at this point was free healthcare, which I strongly believe should be the norm. Now here's where the amazing part comes into play...My opponents in this debate, and let me assure you, I WAS outnumbered, were perfectly reasonable human beings. Rather than trolling me and calling me a "bleeding-heart pussy" or "liberal fag", they simply asked me calmly to explain the logic behind my opinions. And when I finished, they told me that while I have a point, they still disagree with me. Then the reverse happened, and we came to the conclusion that we differ in our opinions, but we all have perfectly valid points.

That was it.

It was incredible. And the effect of their civil attitude towards me was contagious; my troll never showed for the fight. No insults were thrown in either direction, no baseless, ignorant claims were made by either side, and in fact, we actually thanked each other afterwards for the insight. Now, this may be incredibly pussy-ish and liberal of me, I'm not quite sure, but it strikes me that this is how politics should be. No more of either side trying to uncover dirt on the other, no more of schmoozing to lobbyists, special interest groups, or even just random demographics...Just two people, stating their opinions, explaining them, and being friendly to each other.

And here's where my political view comes in: NONE of the politicians are doing this. Obama and a couple of lesser candidates are trying to do this, but no one is truly succeeding. Clinton, in fact, is pissing all over sportsmanship and civility. Obama, while he doesn't mudsling, still tries to convince every little demographic that he's on his side...And I know that's how the game is played, but it doesn't have to be that way.


So here's a plea to any and all politicians who may read this (all zero of ya): Be civil. Bring the heart back to politics, and cut off all that disgusting fat. I'm sick of voting against someone, I want to start voting for someone. Is that too much to ask?

Until then, I'm going to stick to WoW. At least there, the fighting is less underhanded.

The Dumbing Of America

Perfect. Just perfect. This says exactly what I've been saying for ages. There is very little that I can say that was not said ten times better in this article.The one thing though, is how to solve it. The below article gives its own opinion on that matter, but I would like to add that we MUST elect Obama. Obama is an intellectual, and I believe very deeply that if anyone can lead this country back to intelligence, where we belong. We've already lasted well over 200 years, and I think we've got another 100 more at least if we can keep up our momentum. We need change to do that.I've said enough. Let the better candidate win!

read more | digg story

18% of Americans Think Sun Revolves Around Earth

I wonder if this is the same 18% that strongly supports Bush? ;~)

read more | digg story

O.O

I fear for our country. I really do. It's one thing to attempt to refute solid evidence with words from a book (Which may or may not be fiction, depending on your stance), but to believe what is the EXACT OPPOSITE of scientific fact without so much as a citation from the bible to back you up, it's nothing short of stupidity.

The scariest part is that it's our country alone that seems to have this problem with anti-intellectualism. This means we're not talking about people who never had the benefit to go to school, who only have their eyes to decide what's true and what's not...We're talking about fully-educated adults here who went to some sort of school and came out of there thinking that the sun revolves around the earth. I blame our society for constantly bad-mouthing those of us willing to actually use our brain. Bad society, bad! No cookie for you!

The only question now is to figure out what to do about it. Any suggestions?

Edit: Another sad observation. The people who put this article on digg misspelled "Revolves" as "Revovles". Fix'd.

I R BLOGGER

*breaks bottle of champagne on side of blog*

I hereby christen thee, the S.S. Tony's Rantfest!

So I made this here blog for one reason and one reason only. To rant and bitch and complain, so that I have some kind of outlet for those fuming hateful times when I despise all humanity because someone left gum precisely where my foot would be. Also, to link a million things off Digg and bitch/comment about those too. ALSO, to increase my internet presence. So, to start, I shall now link the living hell out of EVERY last piece of the internet I have control over. Series of tubes or not, it's MY series of tubes dammit, and I want people to see it.

My deviantart gallery
My Myspace
My Digg profile
My Facebook

So something about me. Uuuhhh....Well, I'm a hippie. And an artist. And a nerd. I play World Of Warcraft, amongst many other games, but still maintain that I am not an addict. And I like to post on blogs and stuff like people care even though they really don't. And I damn well know it.

Oh well. Either way, my blog virginity is no more. So off I go to bigger and better things.

*flies away in a convertible spaceship*