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.