Talking About Socialized Medicine

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Saturday February 26, 2005 · 8:59 AM PST

2005/02/26 · 08:59

It won't be passed for a while, if it ever is, but in order to set socialized medicine up for our country, I think that we have to start changing hearts and minds now. Currently, "socializing" anything makes many people in the United States think of Soviet tanks imposing their atheistic will upon the defenseless masses, which is silly, because there are many capitalist countries who have created socialized medical systems. We have to gradually change this mind-set if we are ever to create a socialized medical system that serves the people of our country well.

Many of you may be opposed to socialized medicine anyway, but I think that you should look at the talking points and judge their worth. Basically, I want to express some sentiments that you can use to, I suppose, frame the issue. I'll give them after the jump. Read More

Liberal Morality

nanoboy

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Thursday February 17, 2005 · 10:43 AM PST

2005/02/17 · 10:43

There is a common misconceptions amongst conservatives, especially the evangelical sort, that liberals are amoral. We all know that this assertion is untrue, but it is not unfounded. Liberals have a very different kind of morality than do conservatives. In this diary, I want to contrast the two sorts of morality.

I also want to make some attempts to find out how we can go about showing the legitimacy of liberal morality to conservatives. Ultimately, I think that conservative morality will not function in modern society and indeed does not function well at this point. It will only become less and less useful. Read More

What about the Commons?

nanoboy

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Monday February 14, 2005 · 11:58 AM PST

2005/02/14 · 11:58

It's an old idea, but why do we never talk about the Commons? It's an important concept for modern liberal thought. Even if you don't exactly know what it is and where it comes from, you probably use the concept in your thought processes (if you're liberal or progressive.)

The trouble is that no one really talks about it. I've not seen it come up in diaries. Lakoff meantions it in Don't Think of an Elephant but says that it's not well-known enough to be a good frame at present. Why can't we make it one? I'm sure that even many conservatives would see the merits of the concept of the Commons. Read More

In Defense of Evangelicals

nanoboy

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Saturday February 05, 2005 · 10:40 AM PST

2005/02/05 · 10:40

I've seen quite a bit of spite directed at evangelicals on this blog and from liberals/radicals/other left-wingers. While much of it is probably deserved, I think that there are some fundamental misunderstandings about evangelicals, missionaries, and the like.

I am a deist scientist raised in a Southern Baptist family. I went to church and learned about the Bible. I went to the world's largest church camp-- Fall's Creek-- numerous times, and I was generally pretty taken in. However, I am a free thinker, and as I thought about it and learned about it, I came to realize that evangelical Christianity is pretty wrong. However, I cannot help but to respect evangelical Christians, and I think that you should, too. Read More

Distrust and the War

nanoboy

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Thursday January 27, 2005 · 12:53 PM PST

2005/01/27 · 12:53

When President Bush was pushing his plan for war in 2002 and early 2003, I was somewhat supportive. I am a Democrat, a moderate liberal, but not a true pacifist, so there I was, thinking about how the issue was working. The war didn't seem like that bad an idea to me; despite my reservations aobut the legitimacy of weapons of mass destruction, I figured that the elimination of Saddam Hussein would be a good idea.

I knew that the war was not connected to the "War on Terror." I knew that Bush would probably rob quite a bit of oil, but getting rid of a bona fide tyrant... That seemed like a decent thing to do. The anti-war movement did not sway my limited support. Read More

Americans hate politics.

nanoboy

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Wednesday January 19, 2005 · 1:48 PM PST

2005/01/19 · 13:48

Really? I got a little bit frustrated with a response to one of my comments stating that Democrats shouldn't oppose too many things, because Americans hate politics. I think that this attitude is fairly wide-spread amongst Democrats, and that is a big problem.

First of all, when an American doesn't like politics, he or she generally doesn't pay attention to them and wouldn't know what the Democrats are opposing and wouldn't really care. He or she is probably not a voter anyway. Getting the person to care is good, but that is not my focus. The people who care about politics are the ones watching the news about it. They're going to have an opinion on what either party does anyway. I don't think that elected officials should be trying to appear nice and ready to appease, just because they don't want to offend someone. Read More

Liberals and Guns

nanoboy

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Tuesday January 11, 2005 · 2:30 PM PST

2005/01/11 · 14:30

Over that past couple of months, as liberals and progressives do their soul-searching, some have wondered if their positions on the issues should change. One of the positions that comes up is that of gun control. I think that liberals should change their position on this issue.

First off, though, no one should ever change their position to pander. One should always do so for genuine reasons. I would never advocate telling people that you have changed your position to appease their points of view. Instead, I hope that you will consider changing your pro-gun-control point of view for liberal reasons.

more below the fold... Read More

I Don't Believe in Evolution

nanoboy

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Thursday January 06, 2005 · 12:57 PM PST

2005/01/06 · 12:57

I'm a biologist, B.S. from MIT. I don't believe in evolution. Don't get me wrong, though. I think that the theory of evolution is correct, and there is more than sufficient evidence to back it up. I don't believe in creationism either.

You shouldn't believe in evolution either. In fact, you probably don't. It is not a religion or something to be taken on faith. When you look at the facts, weigh the evidence, and do all of that other stuff that you do to decide something, you will almost certainly come to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is correct.

At this point, you might be starting to get what I'm trying to say in an annoyingly round-about way: the theory of evolution is a scientific theory, not a religion or life philosophy-- though it is natural philosophy about life, but that's just confusing. The distinction here is very important. Read More

Why Should People Get Money For Not Working?

nanoboy

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Monday December 20, 2004 · 2:39 PM PST

2004/12/20 · 14:39

This topic is probably pretty dead until the Democrats regain control, and even then, it is probably still dead: welfare. It's something that crossed my mind recently, though. Being rather young at the time, I don't remember too much of the debate and policy decisions that lead to the breaking up of the system.

At the time, I understood that people were getting money for not working. It made sense that we couldn't let people starve, but it did not make sense to me that people could perpetually be out of work (and lazy?) and still make money. Granted, that money was very little, but still, they seemed like a drain. Read More

Role-Playing Games, Christmas, and Moral Panic

nanoboy

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Wednesday December 15, 2004 · 6:15 PM PST

2004/12/15 · 18:15

I just finished reading an interesting piece academically written in an RPG e-zine. You can find it here.

The subject of the article is the history of the moral backlash against role-playing games. Role-playing is a hobby of mine, and given that liberals are having a slug-fest right now with the religious right, I thought that it was rather fitting for the day. Read More

The Romance of Boldness

nanoboy

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Wednesday December 15, 2004 · 1:38 PM PST

2004/12/15 · 13:38

I have been thinking about the causes of the national Democratic defeat. Most of us have. I have been thinking about the candidate, the strategy, the voters... One word keeps popping up in my mind: "bold."

Think about it. The most romantic thing in American culture is this ideal of a bold individual (often a leader) making a bold decision and winning. The second most romantic vision is of a bold individual making a bold decision and tragically losing. Right or wrong, you have to respect the bold. Read More

Terms Not to Use: Fiscal Conservatism

nanoboy

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Monday December 13, 2004 · 4:36 PM PST

2004/12/13 · 16:36

This is kinda like Frameshop, but I am not nearly the diarist that Jeffrey Feldman is. Anyway, this little topic has irked me for a while. Democratic politicians (I think, including Howard Dean) often like to state that they are "fiscal conservatives."

The term "fiscal conservatism" seems to mean a want to balance the budget. To me, at least, it also implies that the people balancing that budget will prefer to do it through spending cuts (not military.) That would make "fiscal conservatism" conservative, I suppose. Still many of the Democrats who use the term aren't really into cutting domestic spending and preserving military spending in order to balance the budget. They usually just want to balance the budget. So why call it "conservative?" Read More

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