Sparky writes:

      > I find recent developments on this list to be disturbing.  Tresy has
      > provided a challenge to the ideals of many on this list.

Don't be frightened.  That's the rightist m.o., scare the bejeebers out of
people using
alarmist shtick.  Recall Reagan's 1980 campaign mainstay:  "There's a bear
in the woods."
And the viewer was supposed to be very, very afraid.  In fact, there was no
bear (Russia).
What was, was already dead in 1980.
Sure, competing ideas challenge each other for our consideration.
But Kilbourne's posting was less a comprehensional challenge and more a snotty,
name-calling, aspersion-casting, polarizing pap slap, recited verbatim from
Rush Limbaugh's radio programming.  See who got programmed.

Don't worry.  Be happy.  Tell you what, I'll give you my number.  If you're
worried,
call me, I'll make you happy.

    > Both sides are equally guilty.  It seems to me that left and right can
always
    > learn from each other and that it is good to have basic beliefs
challenged.

Yes.  Yes.  Both sides are equally guilty of participating.  Dialogue and
cogency
leverage learning.
But chip-on-the-shoulder attitude does not, and Kilbourne is singly guilty
of starting it,
same as and in the pattern of the whole destructive Newtzie blitzkreig of
the '90s.

    > Tresy's comments should not be seen as dangerous, but helpful.
    > Additionally, nothing can be learned or gained if bickering ensues.

No, not "dangerous."  Destabilizing.  Defamatory.  Disrespectful.  Disingenuous.
But not dangerous.  And definitely not "helpful."  Wasn't intended as
helpful, and
wasn't helpful.
And, yes, bickering is a bust.  Further, belligerence is tipoff to a hollow
holding.

    > I think that people such as Tresy should be allowed to challenge
statments

Yes.  And they are.  There is no bar.  "Challenge" is welcome, but
antagonism draws rebuff.

    > ...on this list and everyone else should be able to respond.  Just as
long as it
    > is civil and productive.  Otherwise, it is worthless...

Yes.  It is as you say.  Partisan baiting:  Uncivil.  Unproductive.  Worthless.
In Kilbourne's own description:  Wasted bandwidth.

                       ------------------------------------------------------

And now for something completely different.

I'm writing a book to define "conservative" and "liberal."  Those are
loaded, clumsy words.
I prefer "rightist" and "leftist" -- if the reader sees "Republican" and
"Democrat" in those,
fine, whatever; whom the cap fits, let him wear it.

My thesis is rightism is left-brain thinking and leftism is right-brain
thinking.

Left-brains and right-brains are two separate and distinct organs, evolved to
separate and individual uses.

Left-brain is optimized to ponder:  Who am I?  The instance.  The individual.
Obvious survival advantage.
Right-brain thrives on thinking:  Who are we?  What's my clan? (tribe, kind,
ethnic)
-- because there's a survival advantage in procreating outside one's blood
relations.
The categorical.  The collective.

If so, there are only these two politics, in all time in all poleis.  Third
parties are but
various combined proportions of the two.  We use both hands to tie one shoe,
we use both feet to progress forward.  Let us use both faculties on
political issues.
Which is congruent with the latest political "Third Way" thinking gaining
currency abroad.

It also explains scaling phenomena.
In a province vs. federal balance, the rightist defends the (individual)
province and
the leftist argues for the (collective) nation.
Scaled down, the leftist defends the province's right against a rightist's
assertion of
district or township individuality.
Scaled up, the rightist defends the nation against the leftist's assertion of
global or United Nations authority.
Whether a neighborhood, statehood, or nationhood is a leftist's or
rightist's cause
depends on the scale of the controversy.
Of course, in the biggest picture, such as questions of global warming or
ozone depletion,
planetary viability trumps all.
On the other hand, in the smallest picture:  one mind, one vote -- nothing
is real until
the individual realizes it.

So my conclusion is everyone is both liberal and conservative.  We can stop
the name calling.

Being equipped to see both aspects of a situation -- the individual's
interest and
the interest of the group in which the individual is sited -- helps explain
why people
change back and forth in their lives; leftists becoming rightists, rightists
becoming leftists,
and back.  Partisan preponderance, like handedness, is partly volitional, unlike
eye-color, gender, or race, even recognizing some examples of trying to
alter those traits.

And finally, it is also common knowledge that life grows in stages, or phases,
and left or right preferences and assessments are influenced by and in such
stages.

Let a hundred contrasts blossom.