Opinion Polls

Admit it - we all love to label the people we know, so we'll know how to react to them, speak to them, and how we're going to treat them. Whether it's "Adult, child, teenager" or "Republican, Democrat, Whacko", or "boss, co-worker, underling", every person we come into contact with, we label in one way or another.

Political labels take some thought if you're labeling yourself, but little thought if you're labeling someone else. How do you label yourself, politically?

Do you watch "reality" tv shows?

Your answer might surprise even you. Not all shows are of the "Survivor" or "Bachellor" ilk. Some are worse, some are better. (They'd have to be, wouldn't they??)

Here are some "reality" tv shows you might have watched, and not even considered them so:

Trading Spaces
What Not To Wear
Sell This House
Dog, The Bounty Hunter
Growing Up Gotti
Designer Finals

HGTV has a ton of decorating & home shows that would qualify, so does A & E, as well as all the network fare. Some just plain make my skin crawl, like one that's called Wife Swap (can you think of a more disgusting tv show premise?) Intervention on A & E (how many addicts can you see whine and cry?) and what's that one where the two British ladies go into filthy homes and clean them, or the nanny comes and shows us how parenting is done? Good lord, that's supposed to be entertainment?

So... admit it - you watch at least one "reality" tv show, don't you?

Should the option be changed to "Guilty but insane" rather than "Not guilty by reason of insanity" when someone is so obviously crazy that they're not entirely responsible for their actions?

Daniel M'Naghten was a woodworker who believed he was the target of a conspiracy involving the pope and British Prime Minister Robert Peel. In 1843, M'Naghten traveled to 10 Downing Street to ambush Peel, but mistakenly shot and killed Peel's secretary. During the ensuing trial, several psychiatrists testified M'Naghten was delusional. A jury agreed, declaring him not guilty by reason of insanity.

The public howled in outrage and, a year later, a panel of British judges set forth the legal standard that has been used for 150 years ...

Some states have abolished the use of an insanity defense, an action upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994. Some have amended their laws to include standards of "diminished capacity" or "guilty but mentally ill," but most have roots in the M'Naghten rule.

Washington Post

Do those judged "Not guilty by reason of insanity" just go free? Rarely. In most cases, they're committed to long term psychiatric facilities until they're determined to no longer be a danger. Then we all have to trust in the skills of those psychiatrists...

Should Holocaust denial be a crime?

In some countries in Europe, to publicly deny that the Holocaust took place, is a crime. In others, it's illegal to traffic in Nazi memorabilia. I can't fault those countries for those laws, as even now, 60 years later, some find it so impossible to believe that humans could be so inhumane towards each other, that they're willing to deny that it ever happened. They're unwilling to believe that they were a part of it. Will actually go to great lengths to deny it. Does that make them anti-Semites, or just ostriches?

There's no excuse for neo-Nazis, they're just a bunch of pinheads.

Recently, a right wing British historian, David Irving, was convicted in Austria to 3 years in prison for denying the Holocaust. He's since said that he no longer denies it, but it's thought that his sudden enlightment came just in time to try to avoid a 10 year prison sentence.

We have no such denial laws here in the U.S.. Freedom of speech, and all that, though we do have "hate crime" laws. Things get sticky when someone else takes action based on your speech though. Do you think Holocaust denial should be a crime?

Who's fanning the flames?

Should the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay be shut down?

The United States holds a lease on Guantanamo Bay, pays Cuba $1 per year, and has a military base there. For the soldiers on that base, U.S. law applies to them. Military police are stationed there to uphold and enforce those laws. This is no different than embassy grounds all over the world that are considered the "soil" of their holder.

So, why should a prisoner being held there be exempt from those laws? They can't be, and the UN has called for the U.S. to shut down the prison.

The split is fairly even on this poll so far - how do you vote?

Did VP Cheney and/or his staff err in their handling of his hunting accident? Was it a mistake to not release information directly from his office after the facts were known, on the same day as the accident?

Accidents happen. I don't think anyone really disputes that, and put a few boys together on a weekend, stick guns in their hands, and there's no guarantees what will happen. Again, accidents happen, and they happen with guns every single day in this country.

The entire hunting accident flap, however, could have been avoided had the VP's office done their jobs correctly. Once medical care was obtained, and the police or local sheriffs were called, the very next step should have been that the VP, or an assistant contacted his office in Washington, they contacted the President's office, and the press offices for both put on alert. Once the facts of the case were known, those should have been released as an official statement. That's six hours, tops.

They bumbled this one, and that's not politics, that's just plain facts.

Which term most closely describes you politically?

The poll has several choices, from reactionary through anarchist, but oddly, the two terms that are most frequently used as epithets these days, are conservative and liberal.

Anymore, it seems that liberals use "conservative" with scorn, and conservatives use "liberal" with disgust. I think it's past time for us to grow up, and stop hurling hatred with every utterance of those words. Liberal isn't a swear word, and conservative isn't a bad thing to be.

What's bad, is using someone's beliefs as an insult, and uttering them with as much disrespect and distaste as one would afford a pile of vomit. Believe me, it's entirely possible to discuss your differences in opinion without insulting the other person's intelligence, beliefs, parentage, or education.

Save your venom for nazis, terrorists, pedophiles and rapists - those whose actions deserve your scorn. Leave me and my liberal notions, and that guy over there with his conservative ones out of it. We're not interested in your hatreds, only in your opinions about the issues themselves.