Seasons

With the high percentage of people on alcohol and a dozen other drugs, it may just be the luck of the draw, when someone ends up in an abusive relationship.

It might be easier to develop a stupidity-testing machine than a lie detector.

It's not so simple. I don't think the various types of intelligences and the various types of stupidity exists on opposite ens of a spectrum. I think each type of intelligence and stupidity has it's own spectrum and we can move up and down the line. If we were to try to measure it, we should not have one number, but complex multidimensional graphs in which each is given it's own axis. I think I am both highly intelligent and highly stupid, often at the exact same time.

Prob, in my answer to you about abuse, the "you" wasn't really meant for you. I realize I was typing back to many people I have had this sort of discussion with in the past. I know you are not so close minded and judgmental.

Sorry, I still don't see how turning the problem outward would be in anyway helpful. The power is what matters, and ultimately, the only one you can change is yourself

That's true. But I still want to know if the politicians who rule my life are constitutionally unable to tell the truth. I know I'm a nice guy, but I don't trust "them". They could do a lot to undemonize themseves if we had reliable truth verification technology. I just think their fizzyplexers would be in almost permanet scream-&-flash mode.

I know I'm a nice guy, but I don't trust "them'

Hee hee you need to read that article Ulrike posted. My dad always said we are each our own worst enemy. All the same, it would be easier to punch Duyba in the nose.

Would you rather elect me, knowing I lie but have good intentions, or elect Duya if he had to tell the complete truth? Would it matter who could get things done?

If Dubya had to tell the truth all the time, we'd know his intentions weren't honest. Stupid I can live with, but corrupt and dishonest, no.
I'd vote for you, because you'd lie less than Dubya, even if you tried not to (you're neither stupid nor dishonest, so your case is purely hypothetical.)

It's interesting how the tone of this conversation has evolved toward bitterness - no doubt because of the introduction of politics into it.

I didn't think it was bitter. I guess my sense of humor must be warped. Now show me a picture of a skinny girl eating ice cream, then you'd see bitter.

The power is what matters, and ultimately, the only one you can change is yourself.

Tell that to the people who strung up Mussolini from a lamp post or who shot Ceaucescu against a cellar wall. You can change a lot when politicians seriously piss you off. I sometimes regret being a pacifist by constitution (and yet it's inevitable,) because (and this, I accept is a fundamental flaw in my nature,) I can't help feeling a teeny bit happy when the world is rid of one more dictator.
If I was Catholic I could confess that and be absolved, and get it out of my system, but I have to carry it round like a stone in my heart. I wish I was compassionate enough to feel pity for evil and abusive people, but I'm not. At least nowhere like as much as I feel for their victims.

It's interesting how the tone of this conversation has evolved toward bitterness - no doubt because of the introduction of politics into it.

That may well be down to me in no small measure, so I'll apologise now.
Politics for me is the root of all evil - the wellspring of all dishonesty. The notion that one group of people should set themselves up as "rulers", to command us like slaves. And in the buying of our votes by balance of institutionally inculcated fear, and bread and circuses, to claim legitmacy.

Pay no attention to me - I'm only speaking my mind.

Bev:

Going back over your responses, I have to agree: you are not particularly bitter.

I didn't mean my remark about bitterness to be a criticism, only an observation. It is quite natural to be bitter in certain situations.