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As far as I can tell, liberals and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans, have never been buddies in a lot of cases (I've seen exceptions to this, but they're few and far between). But ever since 9/11, libs and cons seem to be at each other's throats more than ever before. or has it always been like this, and I just never noticed? The reason this bothers me is that both sides waste so much time playing the blame game with each other and demonizing each other, that they forget to objectively try and find solutions for whatever the problem is. It's especially sickening when it's the people in power who are guilty of petty infighting. These days, we have some very big problems facing us and the world. What's more important, proving the other party is responsible for our problems, or fixing the problems? After 9/11, this country should have been united like never before. It wasn't an attack on liberals or conservatives, or committed by either side. It was an attack on Americans, with no distinctions between race, religion, age, or political affiliation. And yet, mere months afterwards, I felt like this country was headed towards another civil war. We have the right to be angry, and it's human nature to need a target for our anger, but shouldn't that anger be directed to who was actually responsible for the attack, and not towards our fellow Americans for having different theories about who the bad guys are? The best part about being an American is that we can debate this kind of thing without worrying about being branded traitors or tyrants. What kind of example are we setting for ourselves by declaring ourselves to be a beacon of Democracy when we call people traitors because we don't agree with their view and allow partisanship to stand in the way of what needs to be done? Wouldn't unity and healthy debate be more inspirational to the world than having Americans say to each other "I'm right and you're wrong, neener neener?" I'm not telling anyone to stop debating or criticizing, but can't we do it without giving into hate or without impeding what needs to be done, whatever it may be? Washington warned us about dividing ourselves into political parties for this very reason. Lincoln warned us that "a house divided cannot stand against itself." Sorry to rant like this. I'm just seein all this petty bickering between liberals and consrvatives going on, and all it does is generate more bad feelings between the two groups. It just bothers me when a group of people who should be united wastes their energies fighting amongst themselves. (And don't go 'round saying "it's the other side." Both sides bash the other guys pretty well.) Again, sorry to rant. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time, and I just couldn't hold it back anymore. Besides, it's not like anyone reads my posts anyway. ![[wink]](images/icons/wink.gif)
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quote:
Originally posted by Darknight613:
The best part about being an American is that we can debate this kind of thing without worrying about being branded traitors or tyrants. What kind of example are we setting for ourselves by declaring ourselves to be a beacon of Democracy when we call people traitors because we don't agree with their view and allow partisanship to stand in the way of what needs to be done? Wouldn't unity and healthy debate be more inspirational to the world than having Americans say to each other "I'm right and you're wrong, neener neener?" I'm not telling anyone to stop debating or criticizing, but can't we do it without giving into hate or without impeding what needs to be done, whatever it may be?
Therin lies a great deal of the current anger and re-enrgized activism on the moderate to left side of the recent past. The inability to get an honest answer on any subject and the accusations of being unAmerican for even daring to ask such questions. 9/11 was IMO used to justify whatever neocon agenda could be reinterpreted to fit the tragedy (Iraq being a prime example, only a day after 9/11/01 by Rumsfeld) and if you questioned it, you were a traitor. That is dirty pool and it was IMO something that is coming back to bite the arrogance and gall of these guys in the ass.
As I just typed in the Limbaugh thread. Limbaugh and his ultra right ilk have been doing the mean spirited attack on AM radio for close to a decade now. Is it really so remarkable that people would rise to push back?
Just turn on your talk radio tommorow afternoon. Then tell me if these people sound at all reasonable or even sane when every problem under the sun is the result of "liberals" (anyone not on the neocon bandwagon), Clinton or "socialists" and whiners. And every thing good in the world is a result of themselves. If the sun rose, it was on account of George W. Bush. If it rained that day, it was on account of something Clinton did. It's to the point that it is laughable. Only the fact that these propagandists succeed in convincing people of their skewered hateful reality isn't funny.
Even Limbaugh now says his show is merely entertainment, which makes me wonder why these people are touted as authorities far above Martin Sheen and Tim Robbins, who of course have been skewered by the right as people who should shut up and be entertainers and not respond to things they don't know anything about.
I dunno. It's ugly but the alternative is to do nothing and watch them transform America into their vision of a Christian theocracy where women have no say in regards to their bodies, American foreign policy is based on beleif that they know what's what and the intelligence should be tailored to fit that reality(*), and American workers should be happy toiling for less with no guaranteed health insurance (socialist, you see), collective bargaining power (socialist), or job security while CEO's get to bilk their companies, bribe politicians, and walk away (if they aern't writing policy in secret).
No thank you. I'll continue to fight back and like minded people are growing each and every day. It's the only sane thing to do.
(*) quote:
WORLDVIEW
George W. Bush's Medieval Presidency
AMAGANSETT, N.Y. — It should have been an embarrassing admission for him and a flabbergasting one for us: President Bush told Fox News recently that he only "glanced" at newspaper headlines, rarely reading stories, and that for his real news hits, he relied on briefings from acolytes who, he said flippantly, "probably read the news themselves." He rationalized his indifference by claiming he needed "objective" information. Even allowing for the president's contempt for the press, it was a peculiar comment, and it prompted the New York Times to call him "one of the most incurious men ever to occupy the White House."
But in citing this as a personal deficiency or even as political grandstanding, critics may have missed the larger point. Incuriosity seems characteristic of the entire Bush administration. More, it seems central to its very operation. The administration seems indifferent to data, impervious to competing viewpoints and ideas. Policy is not adjusted to facts; facts are adjusted to policy. The result is what may be the nation's first medieval presidency — one in which reality is ignored for the administration's own prevailing vision. And just as in medieval days, this willful ignorance can lead to terrible consequences.
At least since the Progressive era, America has been an empire of empiricism, a nation not only of laws but of facts. As heirs of the Enlightenment, the Progressives had an abiding faith in the power of rationality and a belief in the science of governing. Elect officeholders of good intent, arm them with sufficient information and they could guide the government for the public weal. From this seed sprang hundreds of government agencies dedicated to churning out data: statistics on labor, health, education, economics, the environment, you name it. These were digested by bureaucrats and policymakers, then spun into laws and regulations. When the data changed, so presumably would policy. Government went where the facts led it.
Conservatives have often denounced statistics-addicted bureaucrats as social engineers, but they have been no less reliant on data than liberals, because they were no less convinced that government could be rationally conducted. They simply disagreed with liberals on where rationality would take us. President Reagan might dispute economic statistics, and he certainly reinterpreted them to demonstrate how his tax cuts would lead to growth and a balanced budget, as counterintuitive as that seemed. Still, he didn't dispense with facts. He marshaled them to his cause to illustrate that he saw reality more clearly than his antagonists.
The difference between the current administration and its conservative forebears is that facts don't seem to matter at all. They don't even matter enough to reinterpret. Bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, and Condoleezza Rice, his national security advisor, reportedly didn't read the National Intelligence Estimate, which is apparently why she missed the remarks casting doubt on claims that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa. (She reportedly read the document later.) And although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hasn't disavowed reading or watching the news, he has publicly and proudly disavowed paying any attention to it. In this administration, everyone already knows the truth.
A more sinister aspect to this presidency's cavalier attitude toward facts is its effort to bend, twist and distort them when it apparently serves the administration's interests. Intelligence was exaggerated to justify the war in Iraq. Even if there were no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or of ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the CIA was expected to substantiate the accusations. In a similar vein, the New Republic reported that Treasury Department economists had been demoted for providing objective analysis that would help define policy, as they had done in previous administrations. Now they provide fodder for policy already determined. Said one economist who had worked in the Clinton, Reagan and first Bush administrations, "They didn't worry about whether they agreed; we were encouraged to raise issues." Not anymore.
Even the scientific community has been waved off by the medievalists. A minority staff report issued last month by the House Government Reform Committee investigating scientific research found 21 areas in which the administration had "manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings," including the president's assurance that there were more than 60 lines for stem-cell research when there were actually only 11; it concluded that "these actions go far beyond the typical shifts in policy that occur with a change in the political party occupying the White House." When a draft report of the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year included data on global warming, the White House ordered them expunged. Another EPA report, on air quality at ground zero in Manhattan, was altered to provide false reassurance that no danger existed, even though it did.
Every administration spins the facts to its advantage. As the old adage goes, "Figures don't lie but liars do figure." But the White House medievalists aren't just shading the facts. In actively denying or changing them, they are changing the basis on which government has traditionally been conducted: rationality. There is no respect for facts because there is no respect for empiricism. Instead, the Bush ideologues came to power smug in the security of their own worldview, part of which, frankly, seems to be the belief that it would be soft and unmanly to let facts alter their preconceptions. Like the church confronting Galileo, they aren't about to let reality destroy their cosmology, whether it is a bankrupt plan for pacifying an Iraq that was supposed to welcome us as liberators or a bankrupt fiscal plan that was supposed to jolt the economy to health.
Bush has made a great show of his religious faith, and he has won plaudits from many for reintroducing the concept of evil into political discourse. But his stubborn insistence on following his own course, especially after Sept. 11, 2001, may be the most profound way in which religion has shaped his presidency. Bush has a religious epistemology. Having devalued the idea of an observable, verifiable reality and having eschewed rational empiricism, he relies on his unalterable faith in himself not just to inform his policies, as all presidents have, but to dictate them.
His self-confidence is certainly admirable at a time when most politicians mistake opinion polls for empiricism. It is also scary. As writer Leon Wieseltier recently observed, this is a presidency without doubt, one entirely comfortable with its own certainties, which is what makes it medieval. But as Wieseltier also observed, it is doubt that deepens one's vision of life and often provides a better basis for acting within it. It is doubt that helps one understand the world and enables one to avoid hubris. A presidency without doubt and resistant to disconcerting facts is a presidency not on the road to Damascus but on the road to disaster. By regarding facts as political tools, it compromises information and makes reality itself suspect, not to mention that it compromises the agencies that provide the information and makes them unreliable in the future. And by ignoring anything that contradicts its faith, it can vaingloriously plow ahead — right into the abyss. The president and his crew may well live within a pre-Enlightenment lead bubble where they are unwilling and unable to see beyond themselves, but their fellow Americans must live in the real world where even the most powerful nation cannot simply posit its own reality. If you need proof, just read the newspapers
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Whomod: You ask why Rush Limbaugh is considered an authority over the likes of Martin Sheen. Why not? Is there any reason on Earth to pay any attention to some third-rate actor on politics? The Hollyweird types seem to think that playing President on TV makes someone a political expert. Bzzt, wrong!
And before you point out that I didn't give you a reason to listen to Rush, that wasn't my intent. I merely point out that your examples aren't worth listening to either.
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quote:
Originally posted by DuplicateMan:
The Hollyweird types seem to think that playing President on TV makes someone a political expert. Bzzt, wrong!
He may not be an expert, but if he has opinions on the way things are, why shouldn't he express those opinions? Besides, we don't know how much he knows about politics. Actors may work in fantasy land, but the truth is, they live in the real world (most of them, anyway.)
Meanwhile, let's not use this thread as another opportunity for liberals and conservatives to throw down on each other. They've been doing plenty of that wihout my help.
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Writing in the New Republic, writer Jonathan Chait argues that he and many of his fellow liberals don't just think Bush policies are wrong but are actually consumed with hatred for the President: quote:
I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I'm tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too.
He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school--the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks...I hate the way he talks...I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him....And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.
There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche. Nor is this phenomenon limited to my personal experience: Pollster Geoff Garin, speaking to The New York Times, called Bush hatred "as strong as anything I've experienced in 25 years now of polling." Columnist Robert Novak described it as a "hatred ... that I have never seen in 44 years of campaign watching.
So there you have it. A writer for the number one self-avowed mainstream liberal magazine in the nation admits that he and many of his fellows actually hate the President.
Not just disagree with him, but hate him.
As such, we have to ask ourselves, who are the extreme partisans here?
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Here's my rundown.
I don't hate Clinton (or her husband). I don't hate any politician, there are, in the end, just people. Granted, they are all strange, but oh well.
It all boils down to what you think about human nature and what's right and wrong and what should be law.
Do like big governemt or do you like small government?
Do you think all life is sacred? If not, what kind of life isn't? How should we treat the Earth's enovironments? Its creatures? Its humans?
Do you think laws should tell people what the can do or what they can't do?
What do you think of money? Is it just an object? Is it a tool? Is it a virtue or a vice?
There are TONS of other questions I could ask, and anwsering them tells you what kind of person you are.
And that also explains where partianship occurs. This are funadmental differences -- this is human nature.
I will always see humans as inheriantly good, and superior to animals. I am simply not going to see eye-to-eye with someone that thinks humans are assholes and we all need to live like the humble beaver (or dolphin, or wombat, or pigeon...). Now, you can almost reach an agreement when you have something like a Constitution that loosely outlines what's right and what can be made into a law. An environmentalist could argue sparrows have rights in the Consitution -- likewise, I can argue an unborn child has those rights.
The important thing is that we each respect everyone else. And in the respect, polititicans on both sides sometimes fail us. And sometimes, in the strangest moments, they don't.
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Just in time for the our holidays... A company sells anti-Bush Christmas Cards, with the caption O Come Let us Abhor him:  Wow. A one-two punch: hatred of the President and mockery of religious imagry. The left keeps batting a .1000.
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quote:
Originally posted by the G-man:
As such, we have to ask ourselves, who are the extreme partisans here? [/QB]
Both sides have extreme partisans. I've seen both liberals and conservatives play the heavy. We can't say it's one or the other.
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Although I've been labelled a right-wing extremist by a few here on the left of these discussions (I actually consider myself a slightly right-of-center moderate Republican, who always considers and sometimes votes for Independents and Democrats ), I constantly weigh the rhetoric of both sides, and find the Democrat perspective to more frequently bend the truth, outright lie, and slantedly exploit issues emotionally rather than make the argument factually. There are reasons that I am often incensed by Democrat rhetoric, and it has nothing to do with party loyalty. It has to do with listening to both sides, and finding the rhetoric I hear from Democrats rife with blatant misrepresentation, and a knee-jerk opposition to notions of patriotism, military defense, and all things traditional. Democrats don't just disagree with Republicans, they consistently portray Republicans as evil, draconian, nazis, racist, etc. ( see any of Whomod's posted political images for evidence of this. It is consistent liberal tactics, from any number of liberal websites. ) And then Democrats are stunned and appalled when Republicans fire back, and call Democrats the partisan, vicious slanderers that they are, who seduce the uninformed with half-truths. That Democrats opposing the war can say that 90 or so combat deaths since the official end of the war in Iraq (May 1st), is a burden too heavy to bear, is embarrassingly cowardly. This is a war, after all. Are we expected to have a war with no casualties? And for Democrats to paint the Iraq mission as a "quagmire" or "another Vietnam" or a "miserable failure", or whine endlessly about the cost, when the cost of NOT "draining the swamp" (as Rumsfeld has said of Islamic extremist terrorism across the Muslim world), has already been demonstrated on 9/11/2001. To call such a small military price a "quagmire" is clearly a blinders-on opposition to the national interest. Blindly opposing the action, simply because the order to invade Iraq has been given by the hated George W. Bush. As opposed to wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti in the Clinton years, which the same Democrat leaders in Washington --AND celebrity protestors like Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange and so forth-- praised as "wars of liberation" and "just wars". As I recall, in each of these Clinton-era actions as well, we didn't wait around for the U.N. before taking military action. Yet these wars under Clinton were "just wars", and yet the same group singing praises of Clinton's wars say now the 12-years-past-due invasion of Iraq was "warmongering". This is a clear double-standard by those who praised the Clinton wars. RESPECFUL DISSENT by Democrats would be fine with me. CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, ACKNOWLEDGING what has gone well in Iraq, while pushing for corrections in areas that could be altered to be more effective. But for liberals and Democrats to misrepresent the Iraq war in so many ways... - portraying the war in Iraq as a total failure (as it is portrayed by Democrats and the liberal media)
- muting news of the incredible progress in re-developing Iraq in just 6 months,
- over-emphasizing the relatively light U.S. casualties in Iraq,
- seeking out U.S. soldiers who rail on Bush and Rumsfeld, and interviewing them disproportionately to the vast majority who are loyal and proud to be serving,
- denying the U.N.'s pre-war evidence for WMD's,
- downplaying Saddam's torture, rape, extermination and mass graves of his own citizens,
- ignoring his use of VX and nerve gas against his own Kurdish citizens, and against Iranians as well,
... is --pardon my bluntness-- TREASON.
And by treason, I mean blindly condemning our own government, deliberately burying the case for war and emphasizing only the weakest points of Bush's case (the Niger/Uranium story, and lack of WMD's, despite that even the U.N. ackowledges 500 tons of missing WMD's that unquestionably exist but were never accounted for or publicly destroyed).
Treason is also Democrats in Washington who spent three decades undermining our military, wanting to spend government dollars on anything BUT our military (and in the case of Gore, trying to suppress military absentee ballots that would favor Republicans in 2000, in a vain attempt to get elected), who then, in the wake of the present Iraq war/occupation, allege that they, the Democrats and liberals care more about "our boys" than President Bush and the Republicans.
TREASON is the hyperbolic and slanderous liberal propaganda, that through slanted misrepresentation undermines the national interest.
As exemplified by the liberal website images that Whomod posts here, images from a myriad of anti-Bush liberal hate websites. Whomod doesn't create these, he just posts them, because they perpetuate what he already believes. These images don't inform, they just exploit emotion and misrepresent the facts to perpetuate a lie. Against the national interest.
So many Democrats just blindly, vitriolically, venomously despise Bush, and post that opinion over and over and over here and elsewhere, and JUMP on every new allegation (NOTE: allegation, NOT proven fact) as if it were absolute truth.
Because they despise Bush.
NOT based on fact, just a deep-seated hatred of Bush, and often Republicans in general, that they will promote ANY negative portrayal, perpetuate any slander against his presidency, and in doing so, needlessly divide the nation, and undermine the national interest.
And then they have the nerve to criticize Republicans for exposing their arguments for the slanted traitorous rhetoric that they are.
Again, RESPECTFUL and CONSTRUCTIVE dissent from Democrats I have no problem with.
It's the scorched-earth demonization of Bush and Republicans I have a problem with. I might believe that Bush had actually done something to deserve this, if Reagan and Bush Sr., and Dan Quayle, had not received similar treatment.
All of these Republicans are rich men, portrayed as bluebloods who may have served in the military but coasted through with cushy posts their families bought for them, that they didn't earn their positions, that good jobs and positions of corporate and political power were handed to them.
But Al Gore is rich as well, comes from a wealthy family, and receives a very different --and glowing-- treatment by the adoring liberal media.
Democrats and the liberal media tried to do the same negative treatment to Reagan, somewhat less successfully, because he was too politically clever, and too popular.
It was after the 1984 election that I noticed reporting of facts in the news diminished, and liberal slanting and editorializing to the favor of Democrats really began in earnest. And things really became increasingly vicious after 1988.
Although I think liberal media bias has its origins in the enduringly fashionable anti-establishment "counter-culture" movement that began in the 1960's, that many liberals are now re-living with their kids in current rhetoric and protest marches.
That's just using Iraq and WMD's as an example.
That's not even getting into how Democrats consistently exploit the spectre of past racism to fracture the unity of this country across racial and ethnic lines, for their own political gain (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Al Gore in the 2000 election).
Or other issues such as homosexuality, where you're blindly labelled a homophobe if you dare to oppose the liberal party line, and dare to say the liberal portrayal of gays as "just like us" is misrepresentative, are conveniently omitted from the liberal-dominated news, that biasedly favors gays (this was explored in the "Canadians allows Same-Sex marriage" topic, and went on for over 20 pages).
And conversely, liberals simultaneously try to shut out Christianity from representation in government. Even as liberals loudly whine about discrimination, it seems that conservatives and Christians can be stereotyped and discrimintated against with impunity.
And Democrats attempt to litmus-test out any Christians from Court or White House Cabinet positions.
The message from liberals seems to be: Discrimination is wrong, unless it's against people who don't think like us. Then it okay, because it's separation of church and state.
~
Regarding areas that I more often AGREE with Democrats, Democrats make some good arguments for --and more often push harder for-- healthcare issues and labor issues, and affordable housing and education. I consider these to be issues that need resolved for the long-term stability of our economy and democratic government.
And the one area I think Bush is dead wrong is these tax cuts, which I think should have been abolished after 9-11, to compensate for the necessary increased spending.
But on most issues, the rhetoric of Democrats has been so overhyped and vitriolic in recent years that I don't simply disagree with it, but am infuriated by its misrepresentative partisanship.
I wish there was an easier solution to resolving the level of harsh rhetoric. It's only since Bush has been elected in 2000 that I've seen the current level of contempt for a President from the opposite political side. I've never before seen this level of venom against a U.S. President.
Even on these boards, I've seen George W. Bush referred to as "The Shrub", "Bushies"(the Bush administration, and supporters), "The Puppet" and on and on.
When I see that kind of rhetoric coming from the left, it has gone way beyond constructive criticism and patriotic civil disobedience, and become traitorously destructive to our nation and its institutions.
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If you'll allow me to play Devil's Advocate here (the views i express here aren't necessarily mine - just other possible interpretations that maybe you haven't considered) Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
It has to do with listening to both sides, and finding the rhetoric I hear from Democrats rife with blatant misrepresentation, and a knee-jerk opposition to notions of patriotism, military defense, and all things traditional.What do you mean by "traditional" and "patriotism"? These concepts mean differne things to different people, and your views may not mean the same as somebody else's. Democrats don't just disagree with Republicans, they consistently portray Republicans as evil, draconian, nazis, racist, etc.
( see any of Whomod's posted political images for evidence of this. It is consistent liberal tactics, from any number of liberal websites. )And Republicans and conservatives don't try and demonize the liberals and democrats? Over and over again, I hear liberals being accused of being traitors, Communists, and terrorsits. I'm not saying that liberals and Dems don't mudsling. I'm just saying they're not the only ones. It's how politics works - trash the other guy and make your guys look good to win the hearts of the people. And then Democrats are stunned and appalled when Republicans fire back, and call Democrats the partisan, vicious slanderers that they are, who seduce the uninformed with half-truths.Again, playing politics, the same tactics both sides use. That Democrats opposing the war can say that 90 or so combat deaths since the official end of the war in Iraq (May 1st), is a burden too heavy to bear, is embarrassingly cowardly. This is a war, after all. Are we expected to have a war with no casualties? A lot of Democrats were against the war, don't forget. If they were against the war, of course they're going to consider the deaths of our troops an unnecessary burden. [GB]To call such a small military price a "quagmire" is clearly a blinders-on opposition to the national interest. Blindly opposing the action, simply because the order to invade Iraq has been given by the hated George W. Bush. [/QB] Or maybe they genuinely thought it was a bad idea, no matter who gave the order. As opposed to wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti in the Clinton years, which the same Democrat leaders in Washington --AND celebrity protestors like Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange and so forth-- praised as "wars of liberation" and "just wars".
As I recall, in each of these Clinton-era actions as well, we didn't wait around for the U.N. before taking military action. Yet these wars under Clinton were "just wars", and yet the same group singing praises of Clinton's wars say now the 12-years-past-due invasion of Iraq was "warmongering".
This is a clear double-standard by those who praised the Clinton wars.Well, there was a slight difference in Bosnia, from what I recall - ethnic cleansing was actually going on when the US went in. Just as Iraq was attacking Kuwait when the US took on Iraq the first time. With the current Iraq war, nobody was caught in the act. We acted on suspicions and the intentions of preventing anything from happening. (I don't recall Bosnia and Haitii too well) RESPECFUL DISSENT by Democrats would be fine with me. CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, ACKNOWLEDGING what has gone well in Iraq, while pushing for corrections in areas that could be altered to be more effective. No argument there. But for liberals and Democrats to misrepresent the Iraq war in so many ways...
[list]
[*]portraying the war in Iraq as a total failure (as it is portrayed by Democrats and the liberal media)Well, we never caught Saddam, our troops are dying, the Iraqis are in pretty bad shape and many of them don't want us there. So while "total failure" is a harsh exaggeration, the current Iraq war is not exactly the greatest success story in the world. [*]muting news of the incredible progress in re-developing Iraq in just 6 months,
I wouldn't call it muted. Maybe there actually hasn't been much progress. I've heard little in the way of progress, except for the deaths of Saddam's two sons (if only they got Daddy deaarest as well) and schools reopening and textbooks being re-written without Saddam propaganda.
[*]over-emphasizing the relatively light U.S. casualties in Iraq,
There's no such thing as light casualties in a war. There are casualties, plain and simple, and nobody wants their troops to die. We need to be reminded of the human cost of this war.
[QB][*]seeking out U.S. soldiers who rail on Bush and Rumsfeld, and interviewing them disproportionately to the vast majority who are loyal and proud to be serving,
If the dissidents weren't proud to be serving, they never would have signed up. The soldiers have it tough over there, and sometimes they need to vent. Look at what they put up with on a daily basis. How many of us have taken our anger out on someone who might not be the cause of their problems?
[*]denying the U.N.'s pre-war evidence for WMD's
I haven't heard anything about that. Could you elaborate?
[QB][*]downplaying Saddam's torture, rape, extermination and mass graves of his own citizens,
I don't remember anybody downplaying those. I, for one, thought that those should be what Bush should have focused on in persuading the other nations of the world to join us. The WMDs were a (reasonable) assumption. This was fact, and Bush should have focused more on this and less on WMDs. Instead of saying "he could kill more, and we should protect ourselves." Bush should have said "he's killed too many already, and there has to be justice for the victims." It's a lot more dramatic, and could have gotten him much more support. Saddam's recent crimes are difficult to prove, but his past ones are known facts. One should always bank on the sure thing.
BTW, did you know Saddma Hussein backed the infamous Carlos The Jackal?
[*]ignoring his use of VX and nerve gas against his own Kurdish citizens, and against Iranians as well,
See above
... is --pardon my bluntness-- TREASON.
And by treason, I mean blindly condemning our own government, deliberately burying the case for war and emphasizing only the weakest points of Bush's case (the Niger/Uranium story, and lack of WMD's, despite that even the U.N. ackowledges 500 tons of missing WMD's that unquestionably exist but were never accounted for or publicly destroyed).
That's not treason. That's playing politics. If Democrats were selling nuclear codes to terrorists or foreign powers, or tries to take the government hostage with armed force, THAT is treason. Standing in the way of policies you don't agree with is not.
Treason is also Democrats in Washington who spent three decades undermining our military, wanting to spend government dollars on anything BUT our military (and in the case of Gore, trying to suppress military absentee ballots that would favor Republicans in 2000, in a vain attempt to get elected), who then, in the wake of the present Iraq war/occupation, allege that they, the Democrats and liberals care more about "our boys" than President Bush and the Republicans.The military gets plenty of money. Our country has other needs besides defense. And Democrats aren't 100% anti-war. Look at the Roosevelts. FDR led this nation through WWII, and Truman finished it for us. And how did Clinton attack Kosovo and Bosnia without spending a penny on the military? As for the vote suppression, the Bush camp was doing it's fair share of trying to get certai votes to not count. TREASON is the hyperbolic and slanderous liberal propaganda, that through slanted misrepresentation undermines the national interest.
As exemplified by the liberal website images that Whomod posts here, images from a myriad of anti-Bush liberal hate websites. Whomod doesn't create these, he just posts them, because they perpetuate what he already believes. These images don't inform, they just exploit emotion and misrepresent the facts to perpetuate a lie. Against the national interest. There are many who see Bush's actions as being against the national interest, and by "showing him for what he truly is," in their eyes, they're working FOR the national interest, to make sure he's not elected again. So this is all about perspective. So many Democrats just blindly, vitriolically, venomously despise Bush, and post that opinion over and over and over here and elsewhere, and JUMP on every new allegation (NOTE: allegation, NOT proven fact) as if it were absolute truth.
Because they despise Bush.
NOT based on fact, just a deep-seated hatred of Bush, and often Republicans in general, that they will promote ANY negative portrayal, perpetuate any slander against his presidency, and in doing so, needlessly divide the nation, and undermine the national interest. I've seen Republicans and conservatives aim that same blind hatred at Democrats. It's wrong no matter who does it. One side doing it doesn't make it right for the other side. And then they have the nerve to criticize Republicans for exposing their arguments for the slanted traitorous rhetoric that they are.Because to them, it's NOT traitorous to challenge something they honestly don't believe in. Again, RESPECTFUL and CONSTRUCTIVE dissent from Democrats I have no problem with.
It's the scorched-earth demonization of Bush and Republicans I have a problem with. I might believe that Bush had actually done something to deserve this, if Reagan and Bush Sr., and Dan Quayle, had not received similar treatment.In this day and age, there's no such thing as respect for anyone anymore. All of these Republicans are rich men, portrayed as bluebloods who may have served in the military but coasted through with cushy posts their families bought for them, that they didn't earn their positions, that good jobs and positions of corporate and political power were handed to them.??? Nobody ever denied that Bush Sr. and Dole were war veterans, and I cant recall any Democrats accusing them of coasting through. Bush Jr. has gotten accused of coasting through, but not Dole or Bush Sr. But Al Gore is rich as well, comes from a wealthy family, and receives a very different --and glowing-- treatment by the adoring liberal media.
Democrats and the liberal media tried to do the same negative treatment to Reagan, somewhat less successfully, because he was too politically clever, and too popular.
It was after the 1984 election that I noticed reporting of facts in the news diminished, and liberal slanting and editorializing to the favor of Democrats really began in earnest. And things really became increasingly vicious after 1988.
Although I think liberal media bias has its origins in the enduringly fashionable anti-establishment "counter-culture" movement that began in the 1960's, that many liberals are now re-living with their kids in current rhetoric and protest marches.I was looking for a place to talk about the media. I guess this is as good as any. As someone who works in media, I'll be the last person to tell you there's no bias. But that bias exists because it makes the news more interesting to tell it like a story of heroes and villains. The media wants to make money and get people to listen to them. The easiest way to do that is to give the public a hero and a villain. It's sometimes easier to portray one side as the villain than others. But the media knows how to get people to buy their product. How do you think crappy movies make so much money, despite being blasted by critics? It's all in the presentation. Eventually, people will be declaring the media too conservative when the tide turns. That's just using Iraq and WMD's as an example.
That's not even getting into how Democrats consistently exploit the spectre of past racism to fracture the unity of this country across racial and ethnic lines, for their own political gain (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Al Gore in the 2000 election).Again, this is all political maneuvering. All politicians want to play the sympathy card and portray themselves as champions of the underdog. Or other issues such as homosexuality, where you're blindly labelled a homophobe if you dare to oppose the liberal party line, and dare to say the liberal portrayal of gays as "just like us" is misrepresentative, are conveniently omitted from the liberal-dominated news, that biasedly favors gays (this was explored in the "Canadians allows Same-Sex marriage" topic, and went on for over 20 pages). I don't know enough about this one to comment, so I won't. And conversely, liberals simultaneously try to shut out Christianity from representation in government. Even as liberals loudly whine about discrimination, it seems that conservatives and Christians can be stereotyped and discrimintated against with impunity.
And Democrats attempt to litmus-test out any Christians from Court or White House Cabinet positions. Considering the number of Christians in the government, including in he Democratic party, if the Democrats are out to keep Christians out of government, they're doing a lousy job. There's a law that says there should be separation of church and state, and some take that law more seriously than others. The Constitution was emant to be interpreted rather than be inflexible, and when that happens, you get different interpretations. Regarding areas that I more often AGREE with Democrats, Democrats make some good arguments for --and more often push harder for-- healthcare issues and labor issues, and affordable housing and education. I consider these to be issues that need resolved for the long-term stability of our economy and democratic government.
And the one area I think Bush is dead wrong is these tax cuts, which I think should have been abolished after 9-11, to compensate for the necessary increased spending.And just when I was starting to suspect you were just making up the "I look at both sides of the issue" (Just kidding) But on most issues, the rhetoric of Democrats has been so overhyped and vitriolic in recent years that I don't simply disagree with it, but am infuriated by its misrepresentative partisanship. Yeah, it bothers me too. Like I said, I'm not out to slam conservatives, even though I'm playing Devil's Advocate for liberals in this one post (and will probably play devil's advocate for conservatives in somebody else's). But both sides play the game, and both sides must share the guilt. I wish there was an easier solution to resolving the level of harsh rhetoric. It's only since Bush has been elected in 2000 that I've seen the current level of contempt for a President from the opposite political side. I've never before seen this level of venom against a U.S. President.Yeah, what Clinton got is nothing compared to this. But that's the beauty of America. If we hate the guys running our country, we can say so without it being treason. Teddy Roosevent considered it unpatriotic to not criticize the president if you think he deserves to be crtiticized. Even on these boards, I've seen George W. Bush referred to as "The Shrub", "Bushies"(the Bush administration, and supporters), "The Puppet" and on and on.
When I see that kind of rhetoric coming from the left, it has gone way beyond constructive criticism and patriotic civil disobedience, and become traitorously destructive to our nation and its institutions. I think that's a little harsh. A lot of people really don't like Bush, and making fun of him is the only way a lot of them can really strike back at him until the elections. I've made a few jokes about him, but they don't mean anything to me. I'll forget the jokes I made about Bush once he's gone, just like I forgot all the Clinton jokes I've made. I think a lot of the problem is the way we perceive something isn't the way it is. Especially when we don't want to see it a certain way. But we're only human, and none of us can know what the truth is or what the right thing to do is. Everybody tries their best, those with courage stand by their convictions, and the world somehow keeps going.
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 16,201 Likes: 80
Fair Play! 15000+ posts
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Fair Play! 15000+ posts
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 16,201 Likes: 80 |
It's odd to have a lousy economy, kids dying over in Iraq, upcoming elections & not expect an administration to receive criticism. Yet some how this is really all about the liberals (not the folks in charge) mucking things up. And not just some liberals but ALL liberals. Oh & the liberal media too!
Not to say all things liberal are great & I'm certainly not claiming to be Swizterland but some conservatives have staked out patriotism as "theirs". It's truly sickening to see treason being used as a political weapon these days.
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 5,958
some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
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some RKMB'ers are Obsessed with Black People Hmmm? 5000+ posts
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 5,958 |
quote:
Originally posted by Matter-eater Man:
Not to say all things liberal are great & I'm certainly not claiming to be Swizterland but some conservatives have staked out patriotism as "theirs". It's truly sickening to see treason being used as a political weapon these days.
Well judging from many of my posts, i'm 1st in line on the ferry to "gitmo". I'd laugh but a fellow activist informed me not too long ago of a large electrical plant in Pasadena that has large penned in areas where the barbed wire slants inward as to keep people in rather than outward to keep trespassers out, which only reminded me of Iran/Contra and Ollie North's plan to intern dissidents that the right wing Adminstration declares enemies of the state for their opposition to foreign wars. THIS is why I rail so hard and so offensively. To some it's merely about partisanship. To me, it's about the essense of freedom and American democracy itself. And that is why i choose not to trust and give the benefit of the doubt. After all these are the very same people behind Watergate and behind Iran/Contra. Have they earned my trust by slapping a flight suit on their canidate and wrapping themselves all over 9/11 and the flag while at the same time protecting the Saudi'& having the most secretive government in memory?
Have they earned my trust by misleading newspapers across the country this week?
quote:
Bob Bolerjack, editorial page editor at the Herald in Everett, Wash., said his paper had been "duped."
"I won't second-guess a layman, but someone inside our business would understand that you don't do that, that it isn't right," he said, adding that the paper "wants to present the thoughts of folks that are expressed in their own words, not the words of others."
"So WHAT DID YOU EXPECT HIM TO SAY?? HE'S PART OF THE "LIBERAL MEDIA" i'm sure i'll hear next.
By overstating WMD's to launch a plan that was in place LONG before 9/11? "Project of a New American Century" Anyone??? By declaring that Iraq posed an IMMENENT threat??
"Oh but Democrats made statements supporting WMD claims! So bloody what???" You think I trust every Democrat as well?? Regardless though it was THIS administration that linked Iraq to 9/11. It was THIS administration that said Iraq was an IMMINENT threat that had to be stopped before theyv completed their dreaded bombs that would destroy us.
Frankly i've had enough bullshit and subsequent spin.
Here. Britney Spears. Enjoy.
quote:
SPEARS: Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.
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