Spleen Cringe, GfS seems to accept it as an article of faith (or an easy way of avoiding having to read and learn) that people always hue to the party line, whichever party it happens to be. It is true that many people do. But definitely not all.

But as is his wont, he assumes that everyone who expresses an opinion about something is conforming to one political party or another. By simply pigeon-holing someone into a "party line," GfS apparently feels this makes it unnecessary to bother examining what the person is saying and dismiss a well thought out opinion merely by calling that person something like "a loony Liberal."

And his glib, but highly inaccurate remark (with which he has blown off people's opinions many times) that "Right Wing and Left Wing are both on the same bird!" demonstrates that he has no idea of where the terms "Right" and "Left" as indicating political positions originally came from, and still mean, basically, what they did originally. Right Wing and Left Wing have nothing at all to do with birds.

He (and another contributor, who usually drops into a discussion merely to kibbitz and go "tsk tsk!" if someone has a strong opinion) is an advocate of the aphorism, "You can't fight City Hall!" Failing to realize that, of course you can fight City Hall—and change things—and that the aphorism was started by City Hall in hopes of discouraging anyone who wants to try it.

When it comes to politics (or much of anything else), GfS is not a deep thinker. He has his wants and prejudices, but he has obviously failed to heed the admonition of Socrates that "the unexamined life is not worth living," or the oft quoted inscription in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, "Know thyself."

For clarity of thought, one needs to have a well-thought out personal philosophy, which must include an ethical code whereby one judges (among other things) the behavior of the political actions of the various parties and individuals. If one merely accepts "the party line," one is not thinking.

GfS does not seem to have a concept of this, and his knee-jerk reaction to anyone with whom he does not agree or who does not agree with him is to accuse them of thoughtlessly accepting the "party line," when it is he who is not bothering to try to think. Apparently, too much trouble.

And as to the political opinions he has expressed, Bobert is absolutely right. GfS follows the Tea Party / KKK line. Although he denies that he is following any political line.

He just hasn't bothered to think about it.

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And Ake, I do not want to see the United States get embroiled with Syria, but I have the strange feeling that if the U. S. does nothing in the face of the illegal use of chemical weapons against its citizens, you will be on board faulting the U. S. for that!

This should be the purview of the United Nations. But if the U. N. just sits on its hands and the U. S. does the same, strange how the U. S. is always the bad guy, no matter what it does!

Don Firth