The TWO sides of the issue (read on to find out why two is i

[OverLordd]

Well as I was painting today I considered somthing, there are generallythree sides to every issue, the extream pro, the extream con, and the middle ground. Generally the truth is some where in the middle ground. As a example, I present President Bush, some people hate him and call him a complete fool who will ruin this country, some call him a genius that will be our savior, and others (the middle ground) who are most likely right, say that Bush is a desent well educated guy (lets see you ivy leauge degree) who is trying to do the best he can with a polarized country.
Now in the topic that affects us, WWASP and other teen help industries there are only two sides. The side that says they are a bunch of killers, rapists, idiots, brainwashers, soul theives, abusers, and what not. Then there is the side that says they are life savers, helpers, angels, guardians, saints of humanity, and alike.
What alarms me when I thought of this is that a firm truth can generally be found in the middle ground, and as I considered I saw there was not middle ground here, at all! Their your pro program and think every child should try it, or con program and think every one who ever had anything to do with it should be shot.
Sence there is no middle ground I became alarmed to think that some one has to be right, because thats the way things are in life, black and white, right or wrong, so one side has to be right, either these people are demons or angels, either children are being abused or helped, there is no one that says,

        Sure, my parents made me go there and I got pissed, and it was not very comfortable, there were some cold nights, bad food, mean people and all that. Yeah, they helped me work some things out, but they handed me more, what with all the yelling and telling me how bad I am, yeah the adults were all asswholes who had no education, but the students were nice, no I was not physically abused but I have nightmares about it. Yeah I have times when I hate my parents and the people in the program, but I want to move on, as long as they dont come looking your know.

You really dont see this here, or many other places for that matter. I'm just scared were wrong, and im even more scared were right, because if were wrong, I take some mud to the face, if were wrong.... parts of generations have been emotionally killed by these people. There seems to be no middle ground.

[Antigen]

On 2005-06-22 17:16:00, OverLordd wrote:

Sure, my parents made me go there and I got pissed, and it was not very comfortable, there were some cold nights, bad food, mean people and all that. Yeah, they helped me work some things out, but they handed me more, what with all the yelling and telling me how bad I am, yeah the adults were all asswholes who had no education, but the students were nice, no I was not physically abused but I have nightmares about it. Yeah I have times when I hate my parents and the people in the program, but I want to move on, as long as they dont come looking your know.

Actually, I see just about exactly that all the time. There is a middle ground, but I think it's soggy, undermined and highly unstable. If you get into serious discussion w/ true believers (hey, it happens, they don't always stomp off in a huff) they nearly always have to at least admit that the Program is brainwashing; that most of the kids (even those who believe it helped them) have nightmares; that there are side effects to this form of treatment. But, they think it's worth it because the true believers are all 100% convinced (if not initially, then definitely by the time they ship the kid from boot camp or wilderness onto long term RTS) that their child would almost certainly die w/o this unique[sic] program.

That's where I'm firmly convinced that they are wrong. All of my experience and observation tells me that the pot smoking, fast living, rebellios, long haired and otherwise 'troubled' teens who didn't go through the Program have fared far better, on average, than those of us who did. This is true regarless of how wild the kid who didn't go through it or how petty the reasons for intake for those who did.

I think it's stone soup. Human beings have been growing up and going through their throws for millenea already. If you're doing things the wrong way, eventually the consequences catch up w/ you and you learn from your mistakes and correct yourself. Doesn't matter whether we're talking about learning how to walk and talk or learning moderation w/ mind altering drugs or treating others decently.

By placing a kid in a program, you preempt the natural consequences of their own actions w/ contrived consequences. At the same time, you severly damage whatever is left of your trust and relationship w/ them; they're truely all alone in there.

Just don't do it! Have a little faith in yourself and in your kids and just tough it out with them! Save the $100k or more for their inheritance, support or at least one hell of a good summer blow out.

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.
--Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, educator, mathemetician, and social critic

[Anonymous]

I've noticed a similarity in Bush supporters and Program supporters. They are either ideologues, or people with financial incentive to go along with the ideaologues. They ignore reality, and make decisions based on ideas and theories which have no basis in logic. The theory of 'behavior modification' has been proven ineffective, and yet for some reason, parents think these programs will be effective in some way. They are not. They would like to believe it works, but in reality it doesn't.

A lot of people do not live in reality. They live in a world of ideas and fantasy. Many of these people believe they are doing good. They don't. The only good they do is to feed their own ego into believing they are doing something righteous. It's pathetic really, and shows their lack of undertanding of the world around them.

They are frightened children waiting to be told what to do. This is your Bush/Program supporter in a nutshell.

[OverLordd]

But see that really does not work, because I rabidly support Bush, yet I hate this program, so the program does not fit with any political party.

[Anonymous]

I'm a Bush supporter.  I don't agree with *everything* he does, but I think his opposition is worse.

One issue---gay rights.  The Republican stand on gay rights is deplorable, on one side.  On the other side, you have the pink pistols and their slogan, "Gays with guns don't get bashed."

On *both* sides you have the evil that is the War on Drugs.

At least one can reason with the Republicans.  At least there are enough libertarians within the Republican ranks to blunt what *I* see as the worst excesses.

While I deplore what's happening at Gitmo, I see the alternatives as condemning my descendants to burkhas or constant fear of suicide bombs, or nuking a dozen or more Arab cities.  Given the alternatives, while I can't live with the isolation cells for teenagers who have gotten zero due process, I can deal with it for a few suspected terrorists captured in combat as illegal combatants.

Do I wish the *old* version of the International Red Cross was inspecting the facilities.  Damn skippy.  But the present version I don't trust to tell the truth as far as I could spit.  I'd trust a delegation by the Japanese or the Polish, among others, to tell the absolute, straight truth---good, bad and ugly--but for them to put one together would be to sound the death knell for the IRC by openly admitting what it's become, and they aren't ready to do that because the decent governments of the world aren't ready to concede that the IRC can't be fixed.  And truly, I don't know if it can or not---I don't know if it can be reformed into a dispassionate body that just tells the truth and lets the chips fall where they may, instead of the batch of rabidly biased ideologues running it now.

On the other hand, the Democrats' candidate and elected official echelons, and their advisors, are complete idiots with no functional grasp of economics or national defense, and since the convention of '68 are the hostages to every leftward interest group in the country.

They *used to be* ardent defenders of civil liberties, but now they'll sell that out cheerfully for a price, with free speech and free press perhaps being their sole party-wide exceptions.  There are a few bright spots like Miller of California, but damned few.

I'm a little "l" libertarian, and since 1994 the Republicans have been giving civil liberties more *practical* protections, with a few notable exceptions, than the Democrats.

I suppose you might correctly call me an ideologue since I have some grasp of military history and economics and recognize complete idiots when I see them.  And, being part of the US economy simply because I live here, I suppose you can correctly state that I have a financial stake in the economy.  I guess I fit your template of a Bush supporter there.

And, obviously, my logic skills are suspect, since I spent five years as a database programmer and had to write code that would actually run on the systems and do what it was supposed to do.

And, just as obviously, everyone on here can tell that I'm obviously a rabid supporter of behavior modification programs [sarcasm, in case you missed it].

Timoclea

[Antigen]

On 2005-06-23 10:23:00, Anonymous wrote:

While I deplore what's happening at Gitmo, I see the alternatives as condemning my descendants to burkhas or constant fear of suicide bombs, or nuking a dozen or more Arab cities. Given the alternatives, while I can't live with the isolation cells for teenagers who have gotten zero due process, I can deal with it for a few suspected terrorists captured in combat as illegal combatants.

OMG, I'm shocked! I never would have guessed you'd come down on that side of the issue.

What's the point? If there's good reason to fear these people (and I'm confident that, at least in some cases, there is) then why do we have to do anything more than to confine them? We know already that these mental torture methods do NOT generate useful intelligence. All they do is drive the victim insane and make them more angry than they could ever imagine having been before. In the case of someone raised in the mideast, hating every Made in USA bomb and blockade that ever killed some kin or obliterated a town, it only confirms what they already believed about us.

We know from common sense, past experience and the word of professional military personnel NOT closely affiliated w/ CIA (formerly headed by Büsh~no coincidence there, I think) that the best and most reliable way to get authentic cooperation and useful intelligence out of military prisoners is to treat them w/ reasonable dignity, fill them in on the other side of the issues and ask them what they know.

They are either ideologues, or people with financial incentive to go along with the ideaologues.

Exactly the same can be said of the Dempublicans. The only difference I can see between them and the Republicrats on the matter of forced thought reform is that the Republicrats prefer brutality w/ a distinctly religious apologia while the Dempublicans seem more comfortable w/ using chemicals w/ the scientific theory de jour as an excuse. But very few these days seem to have any real concept or faith in letting the better ideas stand on their own.

Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.
--Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", French author and playwright

[Anonymous]

On 2005-06-23 08:52:00, OverLordd wrote:

"But see that really does not work, because I rabidly support Bush, yet I hate this program, so the program does not fit with any political party."

Youre right, I meant ideologues in general. I was just referencing the most powerful ideologues around... the bush administration.

[Anonymous]

Even if someone is a Republican...they should be horrified of the way the Bush administration is running the country....The things that are happening are criminal in nature and nobody seems to be paying any attention to it. There were two reasons we went to war with Iraq....oil and to settle a score with Saddam. That's it. No more, no less. Im beginning to think that everybody are blind sheep following the leader....we call this a democracy for a reason. Its time we stood up and took the country back. No matter what political party you belong to.

[Antigen]

On 2005-06-23 14:44:00, Anonymous wrote:

 There were two reasons we went to war with Iraq....oil and to settle a score with Saddam. That's it.

No, it's a lot more complicated than just that. I don't think these people cared one way or another about Sadam. At the same time Chemichal Ali was gassing rebellious Kurdish towns, Donny Rumsfeld was smiling his creepy old oily smile, mugging for the cameras and shaking Sadam's hand. They had just closed a deal to provide nuclear materials for use in power plants.... in Iraq... where, aside from a narrow swath of good farmland, there's only sand and... oil.

Nope, I think it's all business w/ these people, nothing personal. Halliburton and the oil companies need a bunch of military bases in the region. That's one reason. The Bathist regime was a secular government. That's another. The Iraqi people are well educated enough to know when they're getting the shitty end of the stick. Can't have THEM operating as free agents! That would suck for the current cast of high rollers!

There are a lot of different angles and reasons for this war, but they all point to the same thing. This was is not a war at all. It's just one battle in a bid for world empire. Just read up on the Project for a New American Century. If Wolfowitz and Pearl and the rest of them say they're all about world empire then act on their stated intentions as stated in their plan, why should we not believe them?

I think the left has a really hard time discussing this issue in any real detail. Essentially, the Neocons are ex Marxist elites who, some years ago, took to calling themselves Conservative Republicans. You'd think that the blatant sillyness of it would defeat the purpose. But, evidently, it's worked beautifully.

Now the old Dems attack them w/o a lot of substance because, when it comes down to it, they can't argue w/ the dogma; it's their own damned dogma, after all. And the old Conservatives won't even entertain criticizm because... well, they call themselves Conservatives, so they must be the good guys.

Just remember that Hitler won the election as a Socialist Nationalist, not as a "Republican".

Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.
--Isaac Asimov, Russian-born American author