Freethought: Scientific pursuit of the truth.

Not finding where I belong politically..not sure if i want to either

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:23:46 -0700

I think we've all been there. Tired of it, tired of the corrupt major parties. You have one that I honestly believe is made up corrupt idiot assholes (Republicans). You have another that has some people intending to do good but are incompetent or spineless and the rest are just as corrupt as the Republicans while pretending to be "progressive" when they're the farthest thing from it.

My problems with democrats:

corrupt
pro-drug war
pro-fed
pro-war
not strong enough on the environment
not strong enough for gay rights
not strong enough for women's rights
not strong enough corporate regulation
pro-bailouts
pro-teacher union
pro corporate personhood
anti-privacy
pro torture
pro isreal

My problem with repubilicans:

racist
sexist
homophobic
theocratic
war mongers
corrupt
believe in knee jerk punishments to societal problems rather than reasoned solutions.
pro bailouts
pro fed
pro drug war
anti-healthcare solutions of any kind (including market based solutions. it seems they're only capable of criticizing the dems solutions)
pro corporate rape of the world and everything in it.
anti-privacy
pro torture
pro isreal

But I go and I look at third parties and different modes of thought and find myself utterly incapable of attaching myself to any of them to a point where i could say i'm "mostly" one thing or another.

Constitution Party

Religious nut bags, next.

My problem with Libertarians:

consistent science deniers (global warming). I know they value their economic liberty as a civil right within itself and to an extent it makes sense. But you mention global warming around them and it's like mentioning the holocaust to NeoNazi's. You get this emotive reaction and arm flailing about how all the scientists in all the countries, and all the governments are in on the "big lie" to fool all of us. It's a conspiracy of such proportions I think holocaust deniers and those who think the moon walk was done in a hollywood basement look sane by comparison. So why do they so actively deny it? Well pollution, especially when it is teeny tiny amount from each one of us, actively damaging the atmosphere.. it's hard to hold someone wholly responsible in a court under their system. Who do you sue? Do you sue everyone ? They're system is simply ill equipped. Sure, there are some free market environmental solutions and I support those whole heartedly. But I just find denying scientific fact because it violates your anti-pragmatic world view intellectually dishonest. I don't need to associate with anyone that fanatical about their political philosophy to the point they can't smell their own bullshit.
were happy about the supreme court decision enabling corporations to donate freely to campaign ads. The idea that supposed "liberty-lovers" believe in corporate personhood is laughable.
they claim pro-choice, yet worship the likes of Ron Paul. Too many within the party or fans of the party are simply small government moral-majority republicans in sheep's clothing.

Too many libertarians were all gung-ho about the war initially. This is what makes me think that, even though most stand against corporatism and for civil rights, that many are Republicans in disguise.

My problem with communist-anarchists.

They can't answer basic questions like: how do you prevent and/or punish (or otherwise handle) violent criminals. They have great critiques about what causes violence and how society should be shaped in a way to prevent such violence from occurring but no solutions to handle modern day problems that are happening right now. Apparently the only answer they have to a dude getting jumped and his jaw broken, is for the guy to join a neighborhood association to prevent further crime and allow the thugs to walk free. Talk about putting your fucking on-paper philosophy above real world solutions. I guess neighborhood associations and hand holding everyone and creating a world that imprisons violent offenders away from innocent civilians is just too much to ask. Cultural causes of violence can be reduced, but you'll never get rid of it. And that you don't get rid of needs to be dealt with somehow. This single issue makes me think most anarchists don't believe in anything in order to separate anarchy from chaos. And in fact, any of the solutions to the problem will negate the existence of anarchy. This thread illustrates this perfectly: http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/auppu/ask_anarchism_subreddit_how_ought_anarchists/

-They have no way to prevent a state or corporation rising to power, or capitalism infiltrating a hypothetical anarchist society without a central authority that they oppose.

Furthermore as we've seen, any time communism has been attempted off paper in anything larger than a commune, the whole "anarchist" part goes right out the window and a government who shares more with a fascist state than it does with a free state ends up in power. (Vietnam, N Korea, China, USSR, etc..)

My problems with greens:

have little (or show little) comprehension of fiscal responsibility and see's government bloat as the answer to every problem no matter how big or small. Granted, they at least acknowledge that the deficit is an issue in need of fixing (as do libertarians), which is something the two major parties shit on, but the sheer size of government programs they want do little to make me think they would get around to fixing it either.
has a huge image problem. They're last 3 candidates was a guy who just runs and runs and runs for president rather than trying to make change in other more constructive ways (nader), Cynthia McKinney best known for violence against a cop while she was a member of the House, and David Cobb who talked with a lisp and referred to himself in the 3rd person during the 3rd party debates in 2004. And maybe this is just an image thing (and completely anecdotal), but I've found most people who identify as "green" that i've met personally to usually be a few marbles short. I just sit and wait for them to talk to me about the zodiac or my heart chakra, or some spiritual pseudo-science twist on quantum physics.
are politically correct to the point of absurdity (they're for reparations) and who completely support self-imposed victimhood based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.. I understand very well where the system favors whites over blacks, women over men, men over women, and the way it treats immigrants and homosexuals unfairly. And all of these things need to be fixed. But this endless Whole Foods guilt complex i find to be a horrible approach.

I read Hayek, Chomsky, Marx, Rand, Zinn, hell even some sprinkling of Nader, Al Franken and Michael Moore among other texts... and I just can't help it. I don't think I'm smarter than these guys. I don't think i'm more knowledgeable than these guys. But for some reason, I can't help but think every political speaker, philosopher, politicians, even the uncorrupted and well-intended.. at times sound like they're completely full of themselves and are completely deluded when their world view doesn't fit a particular situation.

I guess my question is, is anyone else like this? Where they just don't fit in the grand political spectrum and that you float around a bit and don't really stick anywhere? Where you look at mode of thought after mode of thought and at first you're like "fuck yeah" and then after a little exposure and allowing the mode of thought to circle around for a bit you can't help but look at the group with a little bit of disdain because these people seem incapable of not knowing when their worldview doesn't really create the desired effect? It always make feel a bit lost and a bit unsure about myself. I sit back and i criticize where other's philosophies are not pragmatic, but i take no joy in the fact that i have no philosophy. I have no desired set of unbending rules that make up what I believe. What I believe is fluid to consequence and to context. And it makes me feel a tad unstable and a tad anti-intellectual. To win a debate, to even pick a side in a debate it's usually pretty good to have a solid foundation in which to base all your arguments from, the branches of your feelings of various smaller subjects always come back to the "big themes" found within your philosophical foundation.. .and I simply feel I don't have that and it bothers me a tad, because I know without this foundation I am bound to contradict myself and i'm bound to by hypocritical somewhere in my line of thinking. But I can't seem to find any mode of thought that I wholly agree with either. Not enough to identify as such. But it a philosophy or a party. Either/or.

submitted by [deleted]
[link] [67 comments]

Not sure if this is where I belong

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 06:57:40 -0700

I'm requesting something, so I'm not sure if this is the right place. Our office is filled with engineers with degrees, and their rings, and all sorts of other 6 figure employees. However, no one can seem to work the coffee pot. It has a stainless steel carafe, so unless you grab it, you can't tell if it is full or empty. Countless times the "brew" button is pressed with a full carafe, dumping an entire pot of coffee on the floor. Or the carafe is placed in the wrong place, missing the mouth, and again, on the floor. It truly baffles me that these people spent years in top tier universities, and managed to get a degree... but a coffee pot is proving too much for them. I'm short on resources and time, and was looking for someone to quickly make up a sign that has a picture of a guy who clearly works at a coffee shop (not hipster barista because he just looks like a douche, no clear evidence of working at a coffee shop) and a title reading "Please learn how to make coffee, if this guy can do it, so can you" I will take pictures of it on the coffee maker.

tl;dr - make a sign telling highly educated people to learn how to make coffee, k thx

submitted by uncooked_toast to comics
[link] [3 comments]

Hello, not sure if i belong here...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:27:45 -0700

My husband and i want to have children, but there are a few things standing on the way:

-I have PCOS, a pretty severe case apparently. I take metformin already, but i never know if it does much. -Im obese (265lbs, 5'7", so i have about 100lbs to lose), which according to my GYN is just going to make things worse -I have Schizoaffective disorder and take a heavy cocktail of mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics just to function. So anything i do will have to be done with my GYN on one side and my shrink on the other.

I guess i just dont feel "at home" on a lot of pregnancy forums because it hurts to see everybody talking about their pregnancies while knowing that it probably wont be that easy for me.

Anyway, let me know if its ok to post here!

submitted by esmereldaskysurfer to infertility
[link] [12 comments]

Not sure if I belong here.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:22:36 -0700

I keep feeling like to be a bro you have to play a sport (or like them) and same with guns.

I like some guy stuff, like anything with fire or knives or speedflying. I also kinda feel like this isn't very welcoming to a vegetarian gay guy who hasn't played a sport since I quit LaX.

Ok, I've said my shit. I'm ready for the usual brutal takedown that most bros do to me.

submitted by cyberking to gaybros
[link] [51 comments]

Not sure where this belonged..

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:42:54 -0700

submitted by b0red to WTF
[link] [13 comments]

Not sure if this belongs to r/Gaming

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:01:07 -0700

submitted by dusibit to AdviceAnimals
[link] [comment]

not sure if I belong on this subreddit

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:47:09 -0700

I'm not actively suicidal, but I think about suicide all the time. To be honest, I sometimes think the only reason I haven't killed myself is the same reason I'm feeling suicidal to begin with - I'm extremely risk averse and this personality trait has kept me away from opportunities in life. I'm terrified of the unknown and death is pretty much the ultimate in that. I feel as if I wasn't a pussy I would just go through with it but instead I persist in my misery. As much as I try to hold out hope that things will improve, it's getting more and more difficult as I get older, I'm starting to feel that I have more than enough evidence in accumulated time and experience that I simply don't belong here. At a certain point I'm going to be at that age where I've missed out on too much and will have too difficult a time getting to where I need to be. I would love to change that but I don't have any confidence in my abilities to make that happen. So instead I just imagine myself slowly isolating from the world and eventually taking a pre-mature exit. A part of me even looks forward to it, but in the meantime I'm lonely and miserable and a burden for the people I do have to deal with (even though they won't admit it to me, I know the reality, I'm not stupid).

So it all has me wondering if I'm correct to be posting here because I'm not "technically" in suicide crisis mode, but rather feel as if my whole life is a slow, long drawn out suicide crisis. Of course the day-to-day problems and concerns cause me to have many "mini-crises" along the way, which seem to be getting more frequent with time. My ability to go to sleep has gone to shit, I simply cannot relax because I'm in a constant state of fear and panic. Too many things in my life are a mess and I don't feel I have the time/energy/ability to fix them. I normally would not bother suicidewatch as I still think I'm far from actually killing myself but last week has been especially bad and am coming off last night which was one of the worst. Naturally I am sleep deprived right now (as I often am) and feeling shitty and desperate enough to bother people here with my problems - which compared to what other people face I know are probably not too severe. Nonetheless, they effect me in a significant way and I simply do not know how to deal with them. I guess I just don't have much tolerance for adversity and thus am generally incompetent at life (in which case I probably should get myself off this lousy rock...).

submitted by mount_shasta to SuicideWatch
[link] [2 comments]

Not sure if want

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:49:39 -0700

submitted by Hormander to WTF
[link] [7 comments]

Not sure if this belongs here, but does anyone know where I could find a kids Portal hoodie?

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:35:16 -0700

Downvote me if you please, but could someone tell me where I could find one? Not adult, teen or kid.

Or a Half-Life 2 one. Or TF2. Doesn't matter to me.

submitted by TheMinecraftian to gaming
[link] [5 comments]

Not sure if want to work here...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:20:29 -0700

submitted by GazUtd to funny
[link] [comment]

I want to join but not sure if I can

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:44:17 -0700

I've done a lot of reading on free masonry and feel like the I would love to be a member but I'm not sure if I am able to join. I have never been a part of a main stream religion and do not consider myself a heavily religious person. is it a requirement to join the brotherhood? My views are more Buddhist than anything and I have heard very little about joining a lodge with this sort of background.

submitted by macropsia to freemasonry
[link] [17 comments]

Not quite sure if this belongs here but I don't know where else to put it.

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 12:31:17 -0700

I'm fairly new to this whole Reddit thing but having read a few stories from others in this subreddit, I feel y'all might be the ones to talk to. Please excuse the incoming rant.

I'm not going to start this off with "I've always known I was trans" but I was constantly teased about painting my nails or hanging out with mostly girls or crying about absolutely everything. So about the age of 8, I decided to hide that part of me and become what everyone else said I should be. I got incredibly irritated with myself almost to the point of attacking myself every time I cried. I stopped painting my nails and putting the little stickers on them, I got a buzz cut which absolutely devastated me. I acted like everything was fine and eventually it was. I forgot I hated it.

And then middle school came along and something happened and all of a sudden I couldn't hide that I was depressed anymore. I stopped wearing the bright colors that said "Look at me I'm over here!" and started wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans every single day. I stopped caring about myself at all. I became even more critical of myself, I saw every flaw in my body. Everything from my wrinkly knees to my already receding hairline and beyond. I stayed in this state from early middle school up through my first semester in college. When I learned of a thing called "transgender" Back in high school however, a friend brought up the idea of wearing dresses to the last day of school. I'm not quite sure how or why he came up with the idea, but I thought it was absolutely fantastic! I tried to keep my rough n tumble "I am man hear me kill" demeanor but I was clearly excited by the idea. So of course I thought I was a crossdresser.

I thought about it, I looked into it, I did my research. I knew it was more complicated than that, I didn't want to just wear girl clothes, I wanted to be seen as a girl. I didn't want people to keep calling me "sir". Or better yet, call me "ma'am" and then be quick to 'correct' themselves and call me "sir".

So, I dropped out of college in my first semester. I was scared shitless of the whole idea of transgenderism. But, I figured "might as well jump and hope for the best" which turns out was the best idea of my life.

TL;DR - I am currently living in Las Vegas as a woman, with my boyfriend and Master at nearly 4 weeks on HRT. I am so much happier than I was it's incredible. I didn't think it was even possible. However, I still have this crippling self-doubt and social anxiety. Does that go away? Or is it a secondary thing that won't necessarily be affected by HRT?

submitted by Inbunn to asktransgender
[link] [15 comments]

Not sure if this pic belongs to funny or WTF

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:41:33 -0700

submitted by FutonSpecialOps to WTF
[link] [6 comments]

Where can I find pageview stats, for websites that do not belong to me?

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:37:39 -0700

For example, how would one find pageview statistics for a ESPN.com story?

submitted by McKill to techsupport
[link] [2 comments]

This might belong on r/music. I'm not sure how to find out.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:18:07 -0700

submitted by quamaretto to WTF
[link] [1 comment]

Not really sure where this belongs...

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:33:42 -0700

submitted by reynoni to reddit.com
[link] [4 comments]

Not sure if want...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:42:41 -0700

submitted by Personsen to fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu
[link] [16 comments]

Not sure if I want to join.

Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:07:08 -0700

submitted by Colemanisbomb to pics
[link] [2 comments]

I'm not sure if I want to unpause...

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:55:36 -0700

submitted by attackfrog to Minecraft
[link] [1 comment]

Not Sure if I want to Open This Fridge...

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:22:37 -0700

submitted by djthunderfucker to funny
[link] [1 comment]

I'm not sure if I want to click this...

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:16:09 -0700

submitted by SilverTorch to funny
[link] [2 comments]

Not sure if I want to know whats underneath

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:42:49 -0700

submitted by snarkpuppet to pics
[link] [3 comments]

I'm not sure if I want to taste this....

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:27:58 -0700

submitted by morr1321 to pics
[link] [3 comments]

Not sure if I want to buy KF

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:08:03 -0700

As you probably noticed, Killing Floor is on sale on Steam. Killing Floor subreddit, convince me this game is worth buying.

submitted by Arkanii to killingfloor
[link] [6 comments]

Not sure if I want to hear it.

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:42:42 -0700

submitted by Hormander to funny
[link] [13 comments]

Not sure if I want to do this anymore

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:43:57 -0700

I guess I'm looking for input on weather to stay or go. I've been in school for like 3-4 years and would still have 2.5 left if I go full time which seems impossible since I need to work 30 hours a week. I used to think this is what I was meant to do since middle school because I understood technical concepts very well and questioned how things work but now school has just beat all the passion out of me. I need money for tuition that I don't have and can't borrow anymore until next year and I feel very uneasy borrowing a lot of money to get a degree, to get a job, where I have to work 50-60 hours a week at some corporate cog in the military industrial complex.

Details: I'm 22, majoring in aerospace (could still easily switch to mech), did pretty well in the math and physics at community college but the actual engineering classes at university just make me hate it. Also 730 classes and professors that don't speak english don't help much.

Thanks for any advice.

submitted by viper_dude08 to engineering
[link] [5 comments]