🚀 go-pugleaf

Well said.

I had the extreme good fortune of two intelligent parents
who were in a reasonable facsimile of a decent relationship with
each other and still are. This is probably why I don't see every
relationship, public or private, as a shootin' war, though I have
been asked to accept that interpretation by others.

This is probably why I don't do well at (serious, not talk.bizarre 
flame-level) "us and them" interpretations of things: I listen to people 
tell me how George Bush is less than human, fundamentally evil, etc. etc.
etc., and though I disagree with 90% of what the man has done this
sounds like utter nonsense to me, because he's obviously human
and, like most (though not all) humans, probably means well
and is convinced he is doing well. When I listen to a self-
proclaimed "liberal" disclaiming the inhumanity of a conservative
I begin seeing the speaker as just another selfish animal
(or dragon, as you put it), using a "liberal" worldview to
achieve its selfish ends. I need a little more proof of inhumanity
than a different set of decisions on the issues. People who
disagree with us, or people we see as misguided, need to be
answered aggressively and publicly, and if they threaten our
physical well-being that violence may need to be answered
as well; but if we give up attempts at dialogue we may as well
admit we are what we see them to be: less than human, robots
designed to carry out a specific "evil" mission, contemptible.

-T

-- 
Tom Boutell, boutell@cshl.org

Clausthaler is the best non - alcoholic beer in the known universe.