User:Ibeme

If "I be me" then you have a right to know a bit about "me" so I thought a clue ot two may be in order...

Pesonal beliefs
Politics: Libertarian, In fact too libertarian to join a party so I am registered "Independant" (read this as Pretty-Darn-Conservative)

War: Been there, done that in Vietnam, it sucked then; it still sucks and while I can imagine conditions in which war may be justified I don't see anything like those conditions extant in the conflicts that this country is involved in today. If there is justification for our current actions the government has failed, utterly, to make its case to me. (No real surprise there eh? - what a bunch of clowns, but that's another story.) None the less, as a Veteran I feel a strong, vested interest in the success of this country. "My country, may she always be right, but my country right or wrong" pretty much sums it up for me.

Social Issues: Religion: I am for it. Religion, any religion, beats the hell out of the alternatives... In Vietnam about 12% of my unit were Mormon, some devout, some not so. The rest of us were "liberated". When the chips were down, however, it was always a Mormon who came through for me. That got me thinking "What is it about these guys..." Over the years I noticed that the more devout a Jew, Catholic, Moslem, Protestant, Jehovahs Witness, Scientologist, or whatever an associate was the better friend, worker, associate, etc. he or she was. True, their attempts to save me can be annoying, but its a price I gladly pay for the honor of associating with them. They are all head and shoulders above people of little or no faith. "Rights" (Womens rights, minority rights, gay rights, democrat and republican rights, etc): I support Human Rights, as in the Universal declaration of Human Rights. This is the senior policy. If it were understood and followed all these lesser, fragmented issues would go away. Every minority complaint, be it real or imagined, boils down to the fact that this guy wants one or more of his human rights reconized and honored. If we push Human Rights we can unite, rather than fragment, efforts to make this world a bit better palce to live. Power to the people!
 * 1) Abortion - I suppport a womans right to choose. I do not support the idea that Government owes a woman an abortion just because its a "right". I have a right to drive - does the government owe me a car?
 * 2) Gays - Leave 'em alone for christ sake, its a tough enough life as it is. Besides, if homosexuality really is genetic they're all doomed anyway (Think about it.)
 * 3) Gun control - I don't own a gun, I don't want a gun but I am passionately against any attempt to limit the right of Americans to keep and bare arms.
 * 4) Government Control - (of anything) Our government has a horrible track record when it comes to getting things right, until they can demonstrate that they can do the simple stuff, like fill a pot hole, why would I trust them to do anything important? Good things happen, when they do, because of individual, not governmental efforts.

Professional background
I am a computer guy. Starting as a programmer and systems analysis I moved into marketing and product management - currently in the internet space. Been at this game for about 40 years now, seen a lot of changes but lord what a rush it has been!

Point of View
Surprise! I have one (what a concept) and I have always enjoyed challenging it, exploring other points of view and expanding my own as a result. This is what got my interested in Wikipedia in the first place - take a bunch of differing points of view discuss them and come to a nuetral consenus. A noble experiment says I.

And its what led me to the Scientology pages. Here is controversy! Here is passion! Here is POV! It's a veritable feast.

Now to be fair I know a lot of Scientologists, and I know a lot of non-Scientolgists who have used bits and pieces of Mr. Hubbard's technology in busines and in life. I worked at Epson America, Cisco Systems, RealWorld Software, and EarthLink (in the early days) where some of Mr. Hubbard's technology was in use some of the time and I saw the results - all worthwhile - and the more it was used the better the results. So I admit that, Hubbards administrative technology at least, is highly credible to me.

My POV on Scientology as a religon is a different story - reading all of the contorversy in Wikipedia has left some unresolved questions so I don't have a specific viewpont here other than my general viewpoint on Religion discussed above that any religion is better than no religion.

My intentions as an editor
POV: An encylopedia should be a place where people can go to learn a bit about a subject of interest to them or a place to browse and find new sbjects to become intersted in thus expanding their viewpoints and enhancing thier lives. We are never going to be a difinitive work on any topic nor should we be; rather we should seek to spark and nurture the curiosity of the reader and encourage him to look more deeply into subjects that interest him.

As an editor I wish to contribute to the creation of such articles.

More POV: A bad article is one which would either bore or scare the reader off of a subject that he/she may have or develop an interest in. For this reason NPOV is vital.

Enough!
I got carried away...

--Ibeme 18:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)