Just got me wondering this in view of a new law which has just been passed here in the UK, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/5297600.stm

No idea. Rape? Blood? Hard BDSM?

My gut feeling says "anything non-consensual".

But that is not enough. Some people engage in BDSM of their own free will, taking precautions and making sure no one goes too far. Not my cup of tea, but hey, it's their bedroom, not mine.

Physical damage? Bruises, cuts, burns?

And there's context. I have no way to find out if participants in a BDSM still do so of their free will, if the slapping/spanking/whatever is fake or full contact. I can only know when I know the full context, which is absent in still images. Videos are another matter, those bring their own context and are easier to judge, but what part is acting and what part is real? I would not know.

Guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven guilty? Or is there a middle ground?

I don't know.

Sometimes people engage in BDSM with needles with their complaintment. I've seen pics of a woman with her lips sewed. I don't understand what pleasure can obtain anyone if somebody sew her lips, but it was absolutely consensual. But a lot of violence for me

I have quite a few torture  props, some which have been bought at renderosity, now under this law in the Uk, if I had V3 tied onto say a stretching racke and M3 was whiiping her, some would view this a porn, others as a fantasy image, I think this is another on eof the UK nanny satte laws which has been brought into being with very little thought, except a gut reaction to the murder which occured which triggered this act to be made law.

these laws pertain to perceived harm to actual humans, and not to digital images of 3d models. there was a similar law about kiddie porn in the states, and the high court struck it down, saying it only applies to actual photos of actual children. more conservative sites can apply these laws according to their own views, e.g. banning all images of digital models of children or nude women, or just banning b-t-k images of digital models of women.

Attached Link: http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Arts/painting/baroque/french-classic/frenchclass.htm

I mean... pedophile images with real children are already banned and no children are getting hurt... right ? (end of sarcasm)

This is only going to force people who really want these kind of images and the people who produce them underground.

And what about past masterpieces such as :

The rape of Lucrecia - Titian
The rape of Europa - Titian
The rape of the daugthers of Leukippos - Rubens
Or the Rape of Sabine Women.

And don't get me started on Sade :)

theres an enormous thread bout this subject over at rotica......

Miss nancy, That hasn't yet been made clear and this "new law" is as yet not in place and through the UK parliament, however the word on the street is this:

Any person found to be in posession of or in the manufacture of violent and pornographic images would be in breach of that new law. There is no mention of the type of media for those images so when and if this "proposed" law actually becomes law, it could well include Poser type images and from what I've seen and heard on the news here about the pressure group responsible for bringing this about, Poser images will very likely be included and this will become law here, no question thanx to the pressure group involved.

If found guilty the person will be sent to jail for up to 3 years, as Zollster says there is a huge thread about this on 'Rotica and it has already led to some artists there not bothering with their art anymore, whether you like that stuff or not is irrelevant, it is another attack on our freedoms!

I have only just vdiscovered the thread at Rotica, my country the UK is getting worst and worst in its supressing of human choice, it seems that George Orwell was correct about what Britian will become.

What is ironilce of course is that hollywood will get away with this as will no doubt UK TV companies.

Poser software must be made illegal, it's a satanic tool that pervers people making them torture nude Vickys.
Violence creates more violence, we must stop the violence removing obscene objects such as Poser from the population.
Imagine if such perversion and violence reach our soldiers and they start to torture nude Vickies in their computers instead of torturing and bombing real Muslims in Irak!!,  this is inadmisible!

Hmmmm.....interesting on several levels.  Especially interesting to see that the US laws are looser in this regard than the UK's.

Just out of curiosity -- are national laws like this affected in any way by the EU?  Or is the EU not even a factor with issues like this?

Thanks.

I live in a EU country, the Netherlands.

Watching porn, violent or otherwise, is not an issue here, with the exception of child porn, that is expressly forbidden.
Distribution and creation is not much of an issue either, as long as the actors/models are of legal age and normal safety precautions are used when the photos/videos are shot.

If someone wants to watch that stuff, it's his/her (usually his) own choice. If he tries to use watching this stuff as an excuse for commiting such a horrible crime, he's out of luck: if he is judged 'compos mentis' by a forensic psychiatrist the excused will be dismissed and he'll face full punishment, if he's judged to have been (partially) out of his mind, he'll be sent to a secure psychiatric ward for a period that could last the rest of his natural life.

The makers/distributors of the movies/pictures would not be considered to be a party in the crime.

There's no law like that new UK law. There's no law like that in the making.

I would have liked to say that the Dutch are too level-headed to think up such an unenforcible law, full of loopholes. Alas, our government has its blind spots too, some of their decisions are downright moronic. Elections are coming up, I don't know which way to vote yet.

Sorry Xenophonz, I misunderstood your question.

Criminal laws are defined by the member countries. There is no EU criminal law.

When it comes to fighting crime, the EU countries work together. There's something like an international arrest warrant, and police data can be shared among countries.

EU 'law' mostly concerns international issues of an economic nature, such as anti-cartel regulations.

Thank you, svdl for all of the information that you've provided in both of your posts.

Yes -- it was my understanding that the EU basically regulates economic matters -- and not other types of internal issues for member countries.  But I wasn't certain.  This helps to clarify things.

Thanks again.  Looks like people in the UK need to consider scrubbing their hard drives.

What we need to do here in the UK is stop listening to every PC type whiner that raises these stupid ideas in the first place and its not our hard drives that need scrubbing, but the lunitic politcal nanny state leaders.

Once I used to love living here in the UK, but we are fast cathching up China in our lack of freedom of thought etc.

"There's no law like that new UK law."

It isn't law, and I suspect won't become law. It's one of those headline-catching populist proposals politicians come up with when they find it necessary to distract public and media attention from more serious issues.

This sort of thing generates a lot of noise but little real open controversy, since few people are likely to want to be seen defending the right to watch violent pornography, while those arguing from a more general human rights supporting  position will get labelled by conservative press commentators as trendy liberals out of touch with reality.

This does present something of a bind for rightwingers -- do they condemn the nanny state in the name of freedom or condemn purveyors of `filth' and demand a ban?

EDIT: "every PC type whiner.."  I suspect that `PC' is what people opposing the ban would be called.

Quote - EDIT: "every PC type whiner.."  I suspect that `PC' is what people opposing the ban would be called.

Oh.....not really.  Hardcore feminists are every bit as anti-porn as any right-winger.  Something about politics and strange bedfellows and all of that.

Totally aside from moral issues or criminal issues in regards to violent crimes like the one in question here -- true PC types want all sorts of restrictions on speech -- and this type of ban is just the other side of the coin for left-wingers who are in bed with PC'ism.  As "they" say -- be careful what you wish for -- because you just might get it.  So now the shoe's on the other foot.  And it's hurting.

It's.....another one of those things that is not as cut & dried as some would like to think.  Right-wing libertarians would be opposed to such a ban; left-wing feminists & PC'ers would be in favor of it.  So it's not truly an issue that you can always divide up so simplistically.

Right now, it's a UK issue.  Eventually, it could very well become an issue in the US, too.

A lot of people are very upset about seeing real-world crimes like this in the news.  And they are reacting on a gut level to that troubling news.  So you can't condemn out-of-hand the motives of the people on the other side of the issue.  They have legitimate reasons for real concern.

These days, we live in a world where all of us want to have our cake, and eat it too.  Some of us want no restrictions on speech whatsoever (including violent speech - like imams in temples advocating death & destruction) -- but yet we also want to live our lives in total peace and safety.  And thus -- an internal, schizophrenic conflict within society as a whole -- trapped by its own contradictory desires.

"Right now, it's a UK issue"

Actually it's drifted off the radar already, and I doubt if it will reappear. The current issue is future Labour Party leadership when Blair quits.

I honestly don't think prudes v. permissives is a left/right thing, in fact I'm not sure how valid those labels are any more. The so-called neocons are quite different from traditional conservatives, in fact the difference was there in 19th century Britain, with Whigs (Liberals, in the original sense) and Tories representing mercantile and landed interests respectively. Neocons are basically steroidal uberWhigs ;)

The term "neocon" means different things to different people.  It depends upon who's using the term.  But it's always a pejorative.

However -- it was initially a term used to apply to certain Jewish members of the conservative movement -- specifically certain members of recent Republican administrations who happened to be Jewish.  Most of those Jews being converted former political liberals.  "Neocon" is a favored term among wacko conspiracy theorists and outright anti-semitic racist groups.  They use the term all of the time.  It's essentially a codeword meaning either "a conservative supporter of Israel"; a "conservative Jew"; or in some cases -- it simply means Jew.

It's not a word that I'd be proud to use.  It has.....strong racist connotations at its core.

"..However -- it was initially a term used to apply to certain Jewish members of the conservative movement "

That's news to me, so I had to look it up, and it seems to be pretty much a minority opinion (note: opinion).  Also the earliest use of the term `neo-conservative' dates to 1921, according to wiki at any rate, and has been used on other occasions well before recent Republican governments existed.

I've always considered the term to be synonymous with neo-Liberal', a term occasionally used to describe what was also called Thatcherism in Britain (Liberal' again taking the 19th century political meaning) -- Whiggish revival in other words.

I've never considered in my wildest imaginings that racist associations were there in that word. Must be a conspiracy on the part of the Humptydumptian Transverbalists.

Intriguing how the same word can have different associations in different areas.

Same goes for 'liberal', in the US the term is associated with left wing Democrats (correct me if I'm wrong), in the Netherlands the term is associated with the largest right wing party. The Dutch liberals traditionally represent mercantile interests, not unlike the UK Whigs.

The funny thing is that there is no political party in the Netherlands that has its roots in the landed interests. Probably because landowners in the Netherlands had lost their political influence long before the Dutch Constitution was created (1848). The more left-wing political parties have their roots in socialism, while the center party started out as a coalition of three Christian parties.

I'd like to know what the original Republicans and Democrats in the US represented. Time to dive into wikipedia, I guess.

"Intriguing how the same word can have different associations in different areas.

Same goes for 'liberal', in the US the term is associated with left wing Democrats (correct me if I'm wrong), in the Netherlands the term is associated with the largest right wing party. The Dutch liberals traditionally represent mercantile interests, not unlike the UK Whigs."

I don't think the term `Liberal'  ever had a political meaning in the US.  In the UK, what happened, broadly speaking was that with the emergence of the Labour movement, mercantile and landed/aristocracy largely abandoned their differences in the face of the perceived threat of socialism.  Also, the merchants and industrialists were becoming very rich, fancied themselves as the new aristocracy, and ended up merging with them via peerages and intermarriage.

The Liberal party gradually declined (but never quite vanished) as their supporters drifted to the Conservatives, and the two main rival parties for government eventually became Labour and Conservative, with the remnants of the LIberal party remaining as a receptacle for protest votes.

New Labour is more like a European Social Democrat party these days, while it does look as if the Conservatives are heading in a Christian Democrat direction (though they won't call themselves that).

The funny thing is that the original Liberals (and the American founding fathers) could definitely have been regarded as radicals or lefties, since they opposed inherited wealth, influence and position, which shows that all arguments are really about where you put the political `centre'.

...and if this topic drifts any more, it'll probably get locked :biggrin:

"Neo-conservative" and "neocon" are not specifically the same thing.  "Neo-conservative" is a more-or-less neutral term.  "Neocon" is intended as an insult.

Groups like the neo-Nazis just love the term "neocon".  It's a great way of saying "filthy Jew" or "filthy Jew lover" without actually saying it.

The term "neocon" is also used by some on the left in an attempt to attack conservatism through the back door.  That is to say, the use of the term "neocon" represents an attempt to discredit conservative opponents by implying that they somehow are not "real conservatives" -- but rather that they are some sort of conspiratorial, shadowy, Illuminati-like masterminds plotting to take over the world for the oil companies.  Or other such similar paranoid neo-wacky neo-fantasies.  Thought up by kooks who should be out earning a living, instead of indulging in mental-mastrabatory daydreaming.

The left is always trying to re-define their opponents as being something other than the pure conservatives that they actually are -- but rather as being monsterous, mutated creatures with dripping poison fangs and bloody, greed-filled minds.  It's typical of those suffering from paranoid delusions to indulge themselves in such living derailments of reason.

shrug  Some few of them might even go so far as to actually believe that their own nightmarish fantasies represent reality.  But......such is the case with the truly insane.

Then you've got some others -- like Mr. Patrick Buchanan -- who self-identify as "true conservatives": while referring to those who are still residing within the movement which they abandoned as being "neocons".  As if those others over there were the ones who had undergone a change...........and not they themselves.  Buchanan abandoned conservatism.  Conservatism did not abandon him.

In any case, "neocon" is one of Mr. Buchanan's favorite words, too.  Pat Buchanan has been an anti-semite for a long time.

So no:  I'd be careful about using the murky term "neocon" whilst engaging in debates with those on the right.  Once again: "neocon" doesn't always mean the same thing.  It depends upon who's saying it.

I don't know the personal philosophy of the individual who wrote that Wiki article.  Knowing that would reveal a lot vis-a-vis their position on what the term actually means.

In the end "neocons" are bad or good????

Neocons are very bad people.  They all want to take over the world & make lots of money.

If I ever happen to meet a neocon -- which I never have -- I'll be sure to ask them why they want to do such horrible things.

xeno, good news - they've given up trying to take over the world - they've realised their limitations :lol: now they're just trying to make lots of money (e.g. wolfowitz) :lol: that's one of the reasons why the place I live is now called "Scandal Valley" :lol:

Well -- with a name like "Wolfowitz" -- he's gotta be a neocon.

People who like violent sexual experiences have existed LONG before the internet and mass publication. As the saying goes, "Where there's a will, there's a way." As someone mentioned above, it's not my cup of tea either, but it DOES exist all around the world.

Here in the US, when the massacre at Columbine happened, lawmakers came out with something like 12 new laws/restrictions concerning firearms - THOSE KIDS WEREN'T OBEYING THE LAWS ALREADY INACTED IN THE FIRST PLACE! Making more laws for something like that does nothing more than to produce a public show to ACT as though they are doing something. It is their knee-jerk reaction to some problem that has had public attention, and would guilt them into creating legislation as a visible attemtp to solve the problem.

There's an inherent problem with the attemtped creation of the initially mentioned law above. It is vague enough to start witch-hunts. While no one in their right mind would publicly denounce the idea presented (least of all a politician), isn't the real issue of the death of the 31 yr old teacher actually "murder"? Whether it was done with panties or a metal pipe - she was murdered.

Personal accountability of one's actions - which all countries have laws for. As Dennis Miller pointed out (he was regarding lyrics in rock music supposedly making kids violent), anything would have set this guy off - a low flying airplane, whatever. You can't save everyone folks - just try not to live next door to them when they go off.

These laws are not made for bandits that of course as usual ignore any law, these laws are made to put in prison decent citizens, if not how do you think that the filthy neocons will be able to take over the world?
I suppose that I'm allowed to combine the word "filthy" with the word "neocon", anyway no Jew was harmed in the construction of this phrase.

Attached Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405477&in_page_id=1770

Well....perhaps this sort of thing has been encouraged by incidents like the teenage gang attacks that we've been hearing about going on in the UK -- where the kids randomly assault people on the street.  They trash parked cars, hit people, yell at people -- and such like.  Or so the occasional news story over here has been saying, anyway.

A couple of years back, I heard a stat which said that a person is six times more likely to get mugged in London than they are in New York City.

If any of this is true, then perhaps some of the public fear can be explained.  And thus: things like these cameras, and strict porn laws.

I see ex-cop turned mayor Ray Mallon is behind those shouty cameras. Mallon is regarded as something of a loose cannon, to put it politely.

From a 2001 news report:

Mr Mallon, 46, still faces 14 disciplinary charges, including neglect of duty, discredited conduct, misconduct, falsehood and prevarication. On 15 October, three days before the referendum, he is set to appear before a disciplinary hearing at Cleveland Police headquarters. Last week the police authority said it could not pay Mr Mallon's £120,000 legal aid bill.  Mr Mallon resigned from the force in August in order to run in the mayoral race, but Chief Constable Barry Shaw refused to accept his resignation.  As a police officer he is not allowed to campaign politically.

That was from the BBC, so of course it might be all lies :)

And, I think I found your source for that neocon=Jew nonsense here:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005656

..which is an op-ed piece from 2004 by Julia Gorin in the Wall Street Journal. According to Gorin, even those who include non-Jewish ultra-conservatives in the category of `neocon' are still anti-Semites, because they're just doing it as a smoke screen, or to show how nasty Jews are dripping "poison in the ears of their hapless gentile bosses" (not Gorin's words, BTW).

To me, Gorin comes across as a classic paranoid conspiracy nut, since evidence that runs counter to her irrational belief is converted by sleight of hand into evidence to support it -- standard delusional behaviour.

@ pearce -- :lol:

Quote - I see ex-cop turned mayor Ray Mallon is behind those shouty cameras. Mallon is regarded as something of a loose cannon, to put it politely.

From a 2001 news report:

Mr Mallon, 46, still faces 14 disciplinary charges, including neglect of duty, discredited conduct, misconduct, falsehood and prevarication. On 15 October, three days before the referendum, he is set to appear before a disciplinary hearing at Cleveland Police headquarters. Last week the police authority said it could not pay Mr Mallon's £120,000 legal aid bill.  Mr Mallon resigned from the force in August in order to run in the mayoral race, but Chief Constable Barry Shaw refused to accept his resignation.  As a police officer he is not allowed to campaign politically.

I certainly don't have a dog in that particular fight: as I am totally unfamiliar with any of the individuals involved.  But it looks like Mayor Mallon must have made his way around the charges somehow -- if he's now the mayor.  It almost sounds like someone just didn't want him to run back then, and used the device of refusing to accept his resignation from the police as a means of keeping him from doing so.  It must not have worked.Perhaps he is a loose cannon -- I've never heard of him prior to that article.

Quote - That was from the BBC, so of course it might be all lies :)

There is that to consider -- I'd say that it's a strong possiblity which should be taken under advisment. :biggrin:

Obviously: you're learning.

Quote - And, I think I found your source for that neocon=Jew nonsense here:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005656

..which is an op-ed piece from 2004 by Julia Gorin in the Wall Street Journal. According to Gorin, even those who include non-Jewish ultra-conservatives in the category of `neocon' are still anti-Semites, because they're just doing it as a smoke screen, or to show how nasty Jews are dripping "

Ahhhh, yes......my neocon=Jew nonsense.  What was the source of it?

Well......the first inklings began about the time that I started to hear the term "neocon" being used in popular political parlance (do you like my alliteration?).  Of course, I'd heard of "neo-conservatives" -- but I'd never heard of "neocons" back then -- so in the beginning I went on the assumption that "neocon" was simply a shortened form of "neo-conservative".  Big deal.  I wasn't a neo-conservative, so it didn't bother me.

But then I began to notice something -- many a ranting caller into radio talk shows would start out by throwing around the term "neocon" a lot -- the "neocons" apparently being the chief source of all evil in the modern world.  And then they'd nearly invariably go on later in their call to start slamming Israel.

I began to suspect that I was catching the distinct odor of rat floating around in the air............

So.....I wondered in my innocence.......just who were these detestable vermin called "neocons"?  Rancid vermin who obviously need to be exterminated for being so foul and polluting?  For some reason, that sort of talk sounded awfully familiar to me...........like maybe I'd heard it somewhere else before.  Like perhaps deriving from certain statements made by sources who spoke around 70-75 years ago or so.

Then, after listening to the likes of Pat Buchanan saying "neocons" all of the time -- plus the same thing coming from others of his ilk (there aren't that many of them, fortunately) -- it didn't take long to put two and two together for myself.

Here's another link for you -- speaking of delusions revealed:

ll of the fulminating about the Jews, about war lust, about neocons running everything would be forgivable, even tolerable, if it were intellectually defensible. But the neoconservative label distorts more than it reveals. As Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride might say to all of these people, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg052103.asp

If someone uses the term "neocon" all of the time -- usually mixed in with a sneer -- then I am immediately suspicious of that person.  And of their motives.  That's no delusion.  Its more from an "I think that we've been down this dark road before" observation.  I don't want to go down that road again.  It leads to a bad place.  And for anyone who cares to say that such a bad place is illusory -- I'd point out the facts of recent history -- as well as the facts of ancient & medieval history.

If it's all a delusion -- then it was and is an on-going delusion which has hurt a great many people.

Good points, Xenophonz and pearce.

Delusion is the word. The more extreme and vocal elements on all sides of the political spectrum have a tendency to generalize. I'll give you an example of typical delusionary logic:

"Mr. X does not agree with Israeli foreign policy. So he must be against the Israelis. That means he's an antisemite, probably sponsoring Hezbollah or Hamas. We must lock up Mr. X before he carries explosives into a school and blows up our kids, after all that's what those Hezbollah terrorists are doing!"

The conspiracy theories accusing the Bush administration of causing 9/11 are the same sort of delusionary reasoning.

(As an aside, I'm a scientist, and the NIST report does not live up to accepted scientific standards. They should have done a better job. And that's it. No conspiracy, just a substandard job)

Using pejoratives invalidates arguments. Whether that pejorative is "neocon" or "islamofascist" doesn't matter.

I should add this -- like in the quoted statement above: I think that some people who use the word "neocon" don't actually realize what it means.  That's the value in codewords of that type -- it gets people stirred up against a perceived shadowy enemy -- without really identifying precisely who that enemy is.  But weak-minded individuals are easily well-trained to hate that faceless enemy.  Lots of people love to blame their personal problems on some vague, nebulous source out there.....like the leering neocons who are the puppet masters of world domination.  You know.....the neocons who are bankers, lawyers, scions of industry, politicians.........those types of neocons.  Those dirty, filthy, lousy neocons who are ruining everything for everybody.  It's a neocon's fault that I can't pay my bills.  It's a neocon's fault that the price of gasoline is so high.  It's a neocon's fault that things are going downhill: and I can't get a job.

And so.....later on, the resistance to dealing with that hated enemy isn't quite as bad as it otherwise might have been.......had the enemy been clearly identified from the beginning.

Demagogics. A favorite tool of many a politician.

One thing I've discovered about politicians: they crave power. All of them. Most will stay within the law while trying to get more power, some will try to bend the law, and a few will break the law. Most will not hesitate to use the demagogics xenophonz has described so well in the previous post.

Some politicians outgrow their craving for power and become statesmen. FDR comes to mind. Alas, true statesmen are in very, very short supply, and always have been.

Quote - The conspiracy theories accusing the Bush administration of causing 9/11 are the same sort of delusionary reasoning.

I'll agree with you on that one.

Quote - Using pejoratives invalidates arguments. Whether that pejorative is "neocon" or "islamofascist" doesn't matter.

Well.....I both agree & disagree with portions of that statement.  While it's true that using pejoratives skews an argument -- it's also true that I have no problems with referring to a true Nazi as a Nazi.  Pejorative implications or not.

With this line of thinking -- we are in danger of straying into the left's "moral equivalence" ranting -- i.e. "we are just as bad as the terrorists...uh....I mean 'freedom fighters'."  I'd call that an excellent example of delusional, alternate-reality thinking.  Much like the belief in the existence of a race of evil beings called "neocons".

I utterly reject any and all such asinine "reasoning".

That isn't a slam at you, svdl.  It's just an observation.

BTW - a term becomes a pejorative is when it's misapplied.  Like referring to GWB as a Nazi.

Or like referring to certain Jewish conservatives as "neocons".

Call a "true neocon" (for lack of a better word) a fascist, because that's the sort of political goals and views their detractors ascribe to him. Do not call him "neocon", that would imply that most conservatives have fascist ideas - which is ridiculous.

Call a terrorist a criminal, that's an accurate term. Call him a deranged murderer, that's an accurate term. Do not call him "islamofascist", that would imply that most Muslims are future deranged murderers - which is ridiculous too.

Separate the chaff from the wheat, then deal with the chaff. Do not burn the entire crop.

I think we really need to move on from this discussion.

Thanks all!!

stacey...i really do think the admin do a good job but why do threads that aren't progressing or producing something locked down. why do they HAVE to move on. i've seen time and again where a threads locked down simply because a mod (who i admit do a good job on the whole) thinks it's non productive. why do we have to move on. if people are discussing why stop them if they're talking drival why stop them..specially if they haven't bronken the rules per say.

maybe i should have started this topic in another thread but i didn't want to seem in your face..(not after the last thread lol)as i say i really do think people  do a good job as such.

billy

This thread has gone rather off-topic, hasn't it?

Thanks Xeno, for a civilized and intelligent discussion. Those are way too rare these days.

Signing off.

Thank you also, svdl.  You've carried on an interesting discussion.  As has pearce, and others.

@ Billy -- the unfortunate truth is that threads like this one can quickly turn nasty -- if someone comes in who wants to push it that way.  So I take no umbrage whatsoever if a mod/admin steps in.  shrug  Rendo's board -- Rendo's rules.  If I really want to discuss politics, then there are places to do that.  But unfortunately, the "discussions" in many of those places usually end up turning personal.

And @ Stacey -- thank you for doing your job. 

Movin' on..........

Thanks for understanding where I was coming from Xeno and svdl:)

Have a great week!

if they turn or start to then i whole heartedly agree with locking them down.

and sorry stacey i wsn't taking a pop at you. just wondering why threads get locked if they aren't offensive or causing propbs as such other than being non productive. i see many that people stop responding to that just decline into obscurity lol. just seems funny that the ones that do seem to get locked more than any are the ones that qestion how or why things.

and xeno i never saw anyone come into this thread and make anything turn personal. as such. i found it interesting. i'd never heard of neocon or what one was till i read the discussion here about it.......if thats your stance on discussing politics why do it?.......i just think it a shame that people acnt' discuss something through to an end and then just leave it in case others want to pick up where someone left off is all. is that bad of me? i find it pretentious  when someone says their say they then say yes it is rather going off topic and infer it should be junked. specialy when the topic they were discussing had little to do with the original topic that started the thread.

billy

Hey Billy --

If you are interested in the subject, then you might like to read through the series of Goldberg articles at the National Review which I linked to above.  It's quite illuminating concerning the history of this odd little blip on the landscape.

And as for the rest -- I can handle nasty.  But I prefer not to.  It's not really the way that I like to be.

And if you want an opinion about neocons, ask David Duke.