The CAULDRON

Rick, I wish you'd make a politics only forum. I like the cauldron as a name.

It would generate a lot of traffic and people who don't like politics would know not to come in.

In any case Tback provided a a cite yesterday in argument to some of my posts, this is what I've gotten from it so far.

* The needs of government and banking never mix
* government has always distrusted bankers
* paper money works

I second this request. Every year about this time after the fall equinox, people start to get really weird. Too much time on their hands, perhaps??

Cauldron works for me. Or The Black Hole - either way I'm good...

Appropriate and with some irony as the Cauldron is what the final battle for Stalingrad is known as.

TG

There's lots of material for a Cauldron forum. Here's some teabaggers that stopped by the White House today.

Sounds like a great place for hobie1616 to repost all of the e-mails he gets.

A different section is not needed IMO.

Take it to PA.

For whatever reason political discussions infuriate a number of frequent flyers on this site. To keep the peace it would be best to segregate ourselves, imo.

Based on the emails I get from Rick, he'd probably sooner just take the "LA Times" approach and ban you guys.

Yes, segregate yourself to PA.
You all have accounts there anyway.

Why do those infuriated frequent flyers open threads with loaded topics?

Arrogance. For some reason they think they control the world.

I don't really care if folks open political threads, it makes it much easier to ignore them; as opposed to when that nonsense is injected into real sailing threads.

Of course, having political threads on the main sailing page does nothing to impress new visitors, so having a dedicated dumping ground is a good idea. Wait, as Tony mentioned, that cesspool already exists...

Mike

Cesspool? kiss you.

Perfect response...

+1

It gets even worse as winter wears on...

Mike

perhaps politics and religion are best debated in person? The relative anonymity of the internet seem to generate a race to the bottom...

Ummm...no. It's not.

Speak to me like you want to be spoken to.

PA seems to have worked out most of its problem. The ignore button is a wonderful thing. Except, of course, for the annointed ones who feel the need to censor the world.

No, no, no my man. Email is so, so pedestrian. The latest technology uses a wireless 'trode that receives the latest intelligence on teabaggers/GOoPers/Nazis from People's Daily, Pravda, Daily Kos, NY Times, Al Jazerra, and an occasional call to arms from George Soros hizself. We be connected!!

If you used the same system your little Trucker D.C. Takeover might have worked. Instead, six trucks showed up and immediately got stuck in traffic. Of course, low attendance could have beed due to the price of fuel.

What is this "winter" thing you speak of? Our temperatures drop to 59 degrees in the middle of the night for one week every year. Is that "winter?"

why not? Do you feel online posting with pseudonames promotes healthy debate?

If you're thinking more of personal conduct being the limiting factor in debate I would agree that many (myself included) probably don't possess the self-control skills needed for such.

H, "winter" is a short period where the humidity drops and afternoon rains stop.

That's why I didn't know what winter is. We either have high humidity or why is your shirt all wet.

Pseudonames? no...not helpful. But that's also why I don't use one. I use my name as my username in every forum I participate in. I've had a couple of conversations at work lately that just didn't go well. Everyone (probably myself included) just seems so polarized today that there is little point in debating because nobody is going to change their position. For instance, I had a recent debate with someone I consider extremely intellectual who believes Obama is subversively trying to consume the supply of ammunition in order to control guns so they can take over an unarmed citizenship. I tried to point out that Obama only has a few years left in office so how would he gain from such a slow and obvious move (if that were the case) among several other inconsistencies with the conspiracy theory. Anyway, I digress...it ended with us both feeling differently about the other person and it impacted the personal relationship. I just try to avoid it anymore.

This community is tiny. We, (or at least I have), know and have met most of the people who post here on a regular basis.

All three of them?

Jake, were you wearing your tin foil hat during your discussion with said co-worker?

if not, he/she probably thought you were under mind control anyway...

speaking of mind control, I'm back to playing the old Command & Conquer series. that Yuri dude reminds me a lot of what you speak of...

It's not that hard, You either don't want to be friends with someone because they don't think like you do or you look past it. I still consider you a friend and I'd say we are fairly opposed when it comes to views.You are just as polarized as your buddy if you didn't yield. It takes 2 to debate. I prefer to discuss this crap in person it is always much more civil. Then again my folks( as probably most here) said don't discuss religion or politics, I didn't listen, big surprise. If there were not at least 2 opposed views we would be in alot worse shape as a country than we are.

Oh dear, here I was, thinking you were going for humor/sarcasm. This is much worse than I thought...

Mike