Quote from aphexcoil:
Thanks man, that means a lot. I've tried to grow up and learn from the smart posters on ET like you.
I agree....Pabst IS a smart poster (usually). And you can learn from him. And I also agree with Pabst and others that YOU have come a very long way from when you first appeared on ET with your loutish bravado and complete lack of humility. Especially considering where you were coming from.
So kudos to you Aphie for growing up right before our eyes.
But I found your post to be more about you being "pissed off" than about having a legitimate gripe...with "liberals".
First off, your behavior with your comment to the girl (well covered already). It seems you made a personal attack on someone in a disagreement about politics. Seems more than uncalled for. I guess you still have some growing to do.
The other thing about your post was it seems to me that you just happened to have found yourself overhearing (eavesdropping?) a conversation you found distasteful. Or in disagreement with.
These people, from your description, seemed to be annoying kinds of people. I don't see that their politics necessarily had much to do with their arrogance and obnoxiousness. Maybe I am getting the wrong picture, but the way you make it sound, it seems their political views were secondary to their overall "type", which is what seemed to bother you (piss you off). If they were behaving the same way and doing it from a right wing position, I bet you would have found them equally irritating.
Maybe I am misinterpreting the whole thing. Bottom line is it seems you just did not like the way these people were....more so than the way you objected to their political views.
There are a-hoe liberals, conservatives, libertarians, socialists, whatever.
It seems like you just did not like these people.
It also seems possible that you may just not have been in the mood to tolerate anyone you disagreed with at that moment.
Think it through. What was it that REALLY pissed you off? Maybe you were just not in a good mood because you found yourself without a date and sitting alone on a weekend nite at a Starbucks?
Just a thought. Maybe I am completely off base. But you started your post with the statement that you considered "being a liberal". Maybe this is also part of some growing up you have ahead of you. Why label yourself? Why not go issue by issue?
It is more than likely that in reality you will find yourself on the "conservative' side of some issues and on the "liberal" side of others. Why do you need to let yourself be "recruited" into one camp or the other?
Do you really believe that it is required to believe in a party line? Are there not people you know and respect that have inconsistent views in regards to politics? Does it impress anyone (does it impress YOU) when someone is a "ditto head"?
Can't you believe (just as an example) in the right to own a gun and also in the right for a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion? It seems to me (as I am sure you know), that the black and white thinkers are really being closed minded. You seem too smart for that. Way too smart.
Peace,

RS