People you disagree with but still respect

[Sisyphus]

In the spirit of non-partisanship in a particularly wacky election year, tell me: who in the political realm, despite having very different views from your own, do you find yourself respecting anyway?

 

For myself, I always pay close attention to what Pat Buchanan says (despite being what he would likely characterize as an enemy in the Culture War*), because he's not only very smart but also one of the very few politicians who (usually) refuses to play the political bullshit game. Antonin Scalia is one of my favorite SCOTUS justices despite consistently pushing a legal philosophy I disagree with, because he argues for the philosophy with rare wit and intelligence that demonstrates he understands the other side as well as his own (in other words, the opposite of Clarence Thomas). William Safire, for similar reasons, was my favorite NYTimes columnist, and is still my favorite etymology maven.

 

 

*navel-gazing left-of-center arch-moderate antidisestablishmentarian moral-relativist pragmatist cosmopolitan technocrat ultra-secularist liberaltarian

[bascule]

Penn & Teller. There are certainly times when I'm like "Oh jesus, why are you saying that?" I saw their Vegas show recently (for the second time in 3 months or so) and they started going on about Al Gore and global warming being a bunch of "bad math"

 

But umm, all that said... I really like their unique blend of rationalist libertarianism and having a skeptical attitude about all things both scientific and (especially) unscientific/pseudoscientific.

[ParanoiA]

Most of the people in this forum get my respect because I think I'm getting their true opinions with honest motivations. I can't really say that about most talking heads on TV. Sorry if that's not specific enough, but I can't think of anyone I disagree with here but don't respect. All of you seem to give a shit. Maybe I'm easy, but that gets my respect.