This Space For Rent: We're short a few good men...

So I was browsing through the Next Blog button the other day and ran across this post, where the author asks a question which I thought had some pretty obvious answers. So I posted my comments on it, and I thought we were having a pretty insteresting discussion, even though he's pretty clearly wrong about the war in Iraq. However, in the last comment, he pretty much just dismisses me as some extremist liberal who is "misinformed" and who he doesn't want to argue with. This from a guy who seems to blame recruiting shortfalls primarily on the media, and who also seems to think that the people we are fighting in Iraq are the same people who attacked us on September 11th.

I should point out here that I probably say some pretty nasty things about conservatives on this page, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there are more reasonable people that just happen to have a more conservative viewpoint than I do. My frustration with conservatives stems mostly from the peopel currently running our country who really don't bear much resmblence to what I always thought a conservative was in the first place.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is the way he just abruptly ended the discussion because he felt it wouldn't be productive since we disagree on so many fundamental facts. What is the point of a debate if we did agree on all these facts? I always feel like I learn more arguing with someone whose views are completely different from mine than by talking to people who will tell me how right I am (feel free to do that, though). I've also never understood this aversion people have to arguing sensitive subjects like politics or religion. If you don't have enough faith in your beliefs for them to stand up to a good argument, then why do you believe them in the first place? And if you can't talk to someone who disagrees with you without getting angry with them, then isn't there something wrong with you?

We had some friends over a couple of weeks ago and we talked about religion and politics, and I don't agree with much of what any of them had to say, but we were all adult enough to disagree and not act like babies, which makes for much more interesting conversation then sitting around talking about Michael Jackson, or the Runaway Bride.

I'm a pretty quiet person by nature, but I don't have any problem telling people why I think what I think, and I don't understand why anyone else does. I suspect in most cases, it's because they aren't very secure in the subject in the first place. Anyway, anyone with any views is welcome to express them here, even if they disagree with me (which of course, makes them wrong).