We The People Foundation challenge Obama to fess up!

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

You can run but you can't hide.

What the Nazis did scares the bejeezus out of you (as it should), but I see the Romantic hiding down there inside you, hiding behind the words.

Michael

Ex-romantic. Ex-idealist. I also stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy. I am long range optimistic. I think the human race will survive for a million years more. I even think technology will increase our prosperity and provide some fun. I also believe that we will remain the same in our hearts until we go extinct. Mankind will muddle through. We will tend toward short range advantages, take the line of lesser resistance and we will continue to know what Good is, but we will not have the will to achieve it. That is the comedy and the tragedy of our existence.

The reason why I did not remain idealistic is that I found the disappointment painful. I learned to avoid the pain by lowering my expectations. An optimist looses. He is almost always thwarted. A pessimist can be pleasantly surprised. On odds, pessimism wins. My strategy is not the pursuit of pleasure but the avoidance of loss and of pain.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The reason why I did not remain idealistic is that I found the disappointment painful. I learned to avoid the pain by lowering my expectations.

Bob,

I saw this a long way off. This is why I offered friendship when the rest of the Web offered scorn.

Let me put on my sanctimonious hat. I have some bad news for you. I believe you still are an idealist at heart. You can cover the flame (as you do well), but you can only kill it with apathy. That you will never do.

Lowering expectations when you love life as much as you show you do is like the "being a little bit pregnant" thing. You can hide the growing belly, but "a little bit" doesn't exist.

Hat off now...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The reason why I did not remain idealistic is that I found the disappointment painful. I learned to avoid the pain by lowering my expectations. An optimist looses. He is almost always thwarted. A pessimist can be pleasantly surprised. On odds, pessimism wins. My strategy is not the pursuit of pleasure but the avoidance of loss and of pain.

That's sad, if true, for you will have loss and pain regardless and when you do it will be a confirmation of failure not the achievement of value. However, you must have already achieved something or you'd have nothing to lose. You can build a house even if the hammer hits your thumb once in a while.

--Brant

Edited December 9, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

That's sad, if true, for you will have loss and pain regardless and when you do it will be a confirmation of failure not the achievement of value. However, you must have already achieved something or you'd have nothing to lose. You can build a house even if the hammer hits your thumb once in a while.

--Brant

When I build a house I -expect- to hit my thumb with the hammer now and again. As a pessimist, I am seldom surprised.

As they say in Latin: fecum sunt.

Ba'al Chatzaf