parusski
Posts: 4804
Joined: 5/8/2000 From: Jackson Tn Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: danlongman Ahhh so much for the forum brain trust. "Nothing you can say will sway my opinion..." -lifted from post #217, Qwixt.. Is the essence of debate. Your opinions are certainly your own and if nothing can sway them that is very nice for you indeed. You will find that your opinion and a couple of bucks will get you a nice big cup of coffee. Good points danlongman. I am a very fiscal and social conservative. But I have never, ever understood the "...will not sway my opinion crowd". I graduated college in 1989 and was an on fire Conservative Republican. I was for the death penalty, but thought all abortions should be allowed, gung-ho for the war on drugs. And for the shocker, at age 22 I had no problem with most gun laws. Over the years, reading the likes of William F. Buckley, Thomas Sowell and Frederick Hayek, amongst others, many of my opinions changed. I now staunchly oppose the death penalty because we should never execute even one innocent person, and that has happened in the U.S. The drug war has been lost and millions have gone to prison for many petty drug crimes. Today I have a much healthier, and wiser, understanding of the sanctity of the Bill of Rights. Each right is as sacred as the others. Those rights are really easy to understand by simply reading them. It helps too to read the writings of the men who crafted the Bill of Rights. When the father of that document,George Mason, writes-" ... to disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."[/b], then how does anyone say that the second amendment is for "hunting"?? I could go on, but that makes the point that any person of serious intellect cannot simply cling to their beliefs just for the sake of never giving in. I gracefully changed my mind on many things over the last 24 years, and that makes me proud.
_____________________________
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman
|