Ongoing discussion

This is the result of a discussion initiated on Facebook. The original discussion was the result of a link to: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/12/30/washington-knows-best
The questions are from the lone liberal in the discussion and the italics are my responses and thoughts.

Why are you so threatened? I am threatened by my own government that has no apparent limit to its hunger for the product of my labors and the desire to take from me what I have labored hard for and give it to someone else many of which are not willing to work as hard as I have but are willing to take from the “government” without the slightest bit of remorse at taking the fruits of another’s labors.

Why can't you envision balance? What type of balance are you referring to? If it is political balance, I can, but unfortunately we do not have any balance in Washhington at this time. It is a totalitarian government we are being subjected to.
Why the extremes? Can't you see all the shades of gray in between? What extreme are you talking about? The extreme we have now is a liberal elitist extreme in that they flat out have no regard for what the electorate desires. They know best and we just have to trust them to do the right thing.
Why do you so fiercely support an agenda that does not support you? Again, what agenda are you talking about. The only agenda that does not support me is the current liberal agenda in Washington.
Why does anything that looks different look like a communist threat?
That was not my comment. Actually, the current situation appears more Marxist than communist.
Why are your "facts" right & my "facts" wrong? I haven’t seen much in the way of facts in your posts. Naturally, I think mine are correct because of the research that I have done. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I will stay with mine.
Why don't you want to "do good"? Do you want to "do bad"? What the hell kind of a question is that? It has no bearing on the post we are discussing. Why do you assume that I don’t want to do “good”? Why do you assume that I want to do “bad”?
Why can't you make a profit AND take a little care of the less fortunate? Why do you assume I don’t? I give a great deal of my earnings. Why is it that liberals assume that conservatives don’t give when statistics show that liberals give less of their income than do conservatives?
Are you so incapable of possibly being less fortunate one day? No, I am not but I am working as hard as I can to see to it that it doesn’t happen.If something does happen, I believe that my family and friends will come to my aid and help me through what I can’t do for myself.
How does anothers greed benefit you? It doesn't but I don’t consider it a detriment either. What others make has little if anything to do with how I conduct my life. Greed has not been defined here. Please provide your definition of greed. I do not believe that ones desire to keep all of what they labor for is greed. I see greed in someone desiring part of and feeling a right to what someone else has worked for.
Do you plan to draw social security when you retire? I may if I retire but I don’t see the time when I will retire.
Are your parents / grandparents on Medicare? My mother may be, I really don’t know. Her finances are her own. My father died in 1981 so I doubt he is. What is the point of this question?
If your house is on fire, will you call the fire dept.? That is an idiotic question and has no bearing on our discussion. Of course I would. That is what I pay local taxes for.
Did you go to college with a grant? Will your children go to college with a grant? No and no.
Do you go to the library? No.
Isn't your healthcare NOW in the hands of corporations who make a profit by denial of benefits? My insurance is in the hands of a corporation which is non-profit. My healthcare is in the hands of my doctor and me.
Should the government not stop corporations from hiring children ... if it ensures a profit, they should stay out of it, right? We have child labor laws now. What is the point of this question. Please clarify.It sounds like you have a presumption but have not disclosed it.
Is there really nothing to be learned from other cultures/countries? Sure there is, both good and bad. I believe if studied and intelligent person will find that socialism, communism and Marxism have failed every time they have been tried and have led to millions dying because the did not agree or objected to the way they were being forced to live. Countries under those forms are not free as we know freedom.
Did you know that "the people" have more power in some countries than we do? There may be some, please enlighten us as to which you think are. I do not feel a present that we have much power at all with the current administration.
Did you know that some people have more freedom than we do? Some may. We have lost many of ours already. Please elaborate.
Why do you feel the need to gang up on someone who is different? I am not aware that anyone has been ganged up on. We have been discussing things and you happen to be outnumbered do to no fault of anyone's. Why are you feeling ganged up on?
Who hurt you? My ex-wife did a pretty good number on me 20-years ago, but that is in the past. Final judgment will take care of that.
What are you afraid of? I am afraid of our country being taken over by a totalitarian form of government that will dictate much of our lives and limit many of the freedoms that we have not lost already.
Why do you see evil? I see evil because
I have been face to face with it. It exists in this world and to deny its existence it exactly what evil wants to happen. There is still evil in this world in many areas.
Why do you need to be at war? I don’t “need” to be at war but if threatened we need to be willing to fight for what we believe is right. War hasn’t been our choice but has been cast on us.
Don't you have enough? First, define “enough”. I have enough to eat tonight.but I always want to have a supply in my cupboard for next week and I want to have enough gas to get me to the store to buy more. I work so that I have enough and then some so that when tough times do come, like presently, that I can make it through until it is better.
What did you do today to make the world a better place? I provided for myself in such a way that I will not be a burden to anyone else. Additionally, my purchases will help others to do the same.
Why are your friends (whom I don't know) afraid to speak up here but write messages of support to my inbox? I don’t know that they have. That is just what you have indicated. I have no way of verifying what you say unless you provide additional info.
Can you hold 2 seemingly opposite concepts in your head at the same time? I can in order to evaluate the preferable best option. Once I have done that I may change my mind later if evidence is convincing.
Do the houses in your neighborhood all look alike? WTF? Some do but I live in a townhouse development.
Does everyone have a manicured lawn? Yes because that is part of our HOA dues.
How do you express yourself creatively? I am a structural engineer and my creativity, in part, is in the design that I provide to my clients. I also sing.
Do you/ did you color outside the lines? Generally tried to because they were there as a guide before I could make the shapes myself.
When did you stop coloring? Why do you assume that I have?
Why do you feel that a superior social system is a march to tyranny? What “superior social system” are making reference to? Give me something to evaluate and I will tell you. Not all would be a march to tyranny.
What defense shield? What are you asking here? This isn’t even a sentence.
Do you have any gay friends? Not to my knowledge.
Do you make over $500,000. a year? Nope.
What do you fear will be taken away from you? As indicated before, my freedom.
Are you capable of pluralism? What type of pluralism are you referring to? Economic, legal, cultural, political,…?
Are you ethnocentric? No. I know that God created us all and has us just as he desires.I know that I have some biases because I am Caucasian but I try to understand others biases as well.

I can’t access Greg’s blog. I have before but can’t anymore for some reason. Help Greg.
I assume these are responses from your blog post.

If ever there was elitism, it was the Bush administration This is crap. It is purely from a liberals point of view. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t any great supporter of Bush but he was the lesser of the two candidates on two occasions.

“President Obama, insists on plowing ahead regardless of what the public thinks, or what any dissenting scientific authorities have to say.” This is true of not only Obama but our elected representatives, too.

At least, they are TRYING to make it better for US & not the greedy corporations. On the contrary, if they were interested in making it better they would have eliminated their own restriction on the purchase of health insurance across state lines and would have included some form of tort reform to limit the lawyers greed.
It continually amazes me how the conservative Republicans accuse that which they are most guilty of.” What? Be specific. This is meaningless without examples. Just a red herring.

“New Authoritarianism based on arrogant power” Who used 9/11 to wage war on Iraq , who when presented with the world at our side, rebuffed the world to pursue his own agenda to an unsanctioned war. You are either ignorant of the facts or just fail to acknowledge them. The U.N. and NATO both sanctioned the war. The UN, for example, passed numerous resolutions calling for Iraq to disarm and stop the production of weapons of mass destruction and authorized any of its members to use force if necessary. The coalition included a number of European nations as well as Japan and Australia. I gather that you would rather have allowed a modern day Hitler to continue to threaten surrounding countries and murder his own people.

“Medicare's New Death Panel” = fear-based lie meant to scare people into submission… not unlike the Bush Administrations playbook. Wrong again. The original bill included a panel that would “council” patients on issues of continuing care. The VA has one now that can discontinue treatment. Where is the Bush program like this? The Democrats have for decades been using fear for their political causes. They have accused of intending to burn black churches in Missouri if elected. Clinton even said that it had happened in Arkansas but there is no record of a single black church being burned. The Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was the Republicans who joined with Johnson to pass it.

“This would aid greatly as well in countering the growing problem of stolen elections”
LOL… don’t get me started on this one (2000) Gore and his cronies tried to steal the election in 2000. Media studies showed that there was no voter fraud except in Democrat precincts. The Supreme Court was correct, the election was determined by the electoral college.