There was one person...

     There was one person who used to respond to me with quotes from "Publius (the real one.)" I am somewhat curious about whe he thought "the real one" was. My Latin dictionary lists four of them as sources for translations -- P Ovidivs Naso, P Papinivs Stativs, P Terentivs Afer, and P Vergilivs Maro. There have been many people to carry the name. Even though this fellow wished to deny me the use of the name, it is in no way clear whom he meant by "the real one." Of course, I thought (and continue to think) that he was full of -ahem- yeah. I delete comments for using such language, so I will not include the word here.

This is important.

     This is an important article that I found. I don't live in Ohio. But voter intimidation affects everybody. The relevant business owners claim that it wasn't intended to offend anyone. I don't care if they offend people. As far as I'm concerned, if they want to offend people, they can do so. But intimidating people in order to influence an election is completely inappropriate. Coercion like that is something that should earn them jail time.

He can't really believe all the things he says, can he?

     Stormbringer wrote a post about the "enemies of freedom and liberty." Now, it should be noted that the people who advocated secret prisons and holding American citizens in secret facilities without charge, access to lawyers, or access to the courts were Republicans. Remember that? Now, I'm not going to say that all Republicans advocate that, because they don't. But all the people who advocate that are Republicans. He clearly has not considered what it means to be "anti-freedom." Such a position opposes the right to dissent. (When was the last time you heard someone called a "Democrat In Name Only"?) And those who oppose freedom will necessarily want to build more prisons. (There can be other reasons for wanting to build prisons. But someone trampling freedom needs more prisons to accomplish his task.)
     I'm not going to tell anyone he has to favor the Democrats in this election. The Democrats will lose seats because the economy is struggling. I know this for a fact. And some people believe that Democrats push too much government spending. Of course, I happen to like spending on libraries and research. But I can't (and will not try to) dictate others' beliefs. The facts, however, are quite plain. Any anti-freedom movement we have seen has come from within the Republican party. I would recommend that the GOP try to lose those members. They are a small (but loud) part of the party and can be considered a cancer.

The "Quiver Full" movement.

     I have recently heard about a movement called the "Quiver Full" movement. Apparently, it tries to tell christians to have as many children as they possibly can. Considering the fact that we already have an issue with overpopulation, I think that is a terrible idea. With the current population, anyone who has five or more children is being irresponsible. It is possible and reasonable to avoid too many children. Celibacy is quite effective. Contraception is also very useful for those who don't like that first option.

About Stormbringer's repetition of an old joke.

     Usually, the corrupt politician is listed as a conservative. I've seen the joke many times in many forms. Personally, I think it works best without trying to demonize any political party. But I can't really expect too much from someone who, despite all his protestations, is endeavoring to turn this country into a theocracy. His bias is quite blatent.

     I saw his post where he gives his list of "possible reasons" why people voted for Democrats in the last election. They are, of course intended to sound like no sane person would ever vote for anyone but a hard-line Republican. In reality, of course people are not so tethered to the political parties, especially since one has to hold one's nose to vote. The Republicans lost in the last election because the president launched a war in Iraq for personal reasons, the economy tanked on Republican watch (not that they had any control over it, but they were in power and got the blame) and let us not forget the "majority of the majority" nonsense. Seriously, it got to a point where lobbyists were told that, if they weren't acting to try to get every seat in Congress under Republican control, their proposals wouldn't be heard. And neither party can be trusted with that kind of power. So the people voted the crooks out. Sure, they were replaced with a new set of crooks. But the action was (more or less) rational.

Calling people "unamerican"

     It is, unfortunately, a common practice to call people who disagree with you "unamerican." This is, of course, never intended to facilitate rational discussion -- but rather to suppress dissent. Why is it that people want to prevent differing viewpoint being heard? Some of you may think that I am pining for the "good old days" when open discussion was encouraged and unpopular ideas were given unfettered access to the public so that people could more readily make up their own minds. I would, except for one thing. Those days never existed! The ideal of free speech has seen little more than lip service.

Stormbringer now says...

     Stormbringer now says that he took the name from an album and has modified his profile to include the image of the album cover (apparently to "prove" that was the case.) Now, me, I think after he saw that I noted that he named himself after a certain black sword, he searched for some possible alternate source for that name. After all, he does try to claim that everything I say is a "lie." I have no doubt that, had I said he named himself after the song, he would claim he named himself after the book.
     But in a sense it doesn't really matter. Based on the source I identified, he named himself after evil. Even if you take his claim at face value (which I don't) he still named himself after evil. Whether he recognized it as evil when he chose the name...
     So what's the point of all this? Well, for my part, I am quite entertained by Stormbringer's antics. Stormbringer, on the other hand, seems deathly afraid that someone might actually listen to what I have to say. It explains a lot. He spends a lot of time railing about how I am "lying," "wrong," "filled with hate," and so on. This can be explained as trying to get people who have already seen what I say to dismiss me the way he would like. On the other hand, he makes sure not to supply his readers with any links, ever, that would lead them to what I actually say and enable them to make up their own minds. In fact, when Google automatically tracks back from when I link to him, he deletes such links because he doesn't want his readers making up their own minds.