That's why I stated that both the far-right and far-left are motivated by morality. That commonality is why you see diametrically opposed groups adopting the same tactics and basis for authority. In my moderate opinion, it makes both of them invalid as political ideology, they're still fighting Becket vs. Henry II or Pope Gregory VII's Papal Reform. That's not to say that their aren't issues that either group advocates aren't valid political topics, it's that their morality based ideology which provides basis for authority is invalid. Moderates can take up fringe issues once a valid basis for authority is found.
Valid basis for authority must be distilled from precedent and principle. It must also allow the entire body of law to remain internally consistent and logical.
That's an utterly crap explanation. Conservatives have a literal interpretation of the Constitution to match their literal interpretation of the Bible. The Liberals have an interpretation based on the principles and ideology of the Constitution to match their spiritual, running throught the fields interprative dance ideology of religion (or lack thereof).
Ultimately, the current "Conservative" movement in America represents a cultural movement rather than a coherent political ideology, in other words, Intellectual Conservatism is dead. Liberals however, have recast themselves as Progressives to avoid association with the self-marginalizing far-left. The far-left is about as unintellectual as the far-right these days, both seem to be driven by moral worldviews than valid political ideology. The moderates on the Conservative side, those that still retain an actual political ideology, have been marginalized by culturally motivated groups like the Christian Coalition. The moderates on the Liberal side, after watching the far-left self-marginalize, now dominate the Left and only have to worry about the far-left getting too much voice while they fight off the far-right. Meanwhile, the moderate right is sitting on it's ass, still in complete denial that it has been marginalized by loonies.
I'm sure someone will consider this flaimbait or nonsense, but it's a hell of a lot more accurate than the parent.
Paul Begala and James Carville are political commentators paired against Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak. Robert Novak has been doing hatchet work for the GOP for so long, Begala and Carville joining the Kerry campaign is hardly a indictment of CNN. Both Begala and Carville only appear on Crossfire and as political analysts and are almost always paired off.
If you think CNN is liberal, then you've jumped off the far right edge of the cliff, or your trolling. CNN gored Gore as much as anyone else and has given the Bushies as much room to spread their propoganda as any other news organization, except Fox.
In order for your statement to have any truth CNN would have had to fire Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak, although I think Novak should have been fired for the Plame incident. Let me guess your defense, Tucker Carlson is really a liberal because he has a show on PBS now.
Re:I've got mine on pre-order.
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My fiance needs to be able to get a light on immediatly when I go into one of those, as its the only thing that snaps me out of them. Considering that I have been know to both do damage to the room, and to attack her during a night-terror, we both want to have no delay in getting that light on.
Greenpeace called, they made an exception for you for this one instance. Just don't let it happen again.
Excuse the sarcasm, but dear lord! I thought you were going to bring up the fact that it's near impossible to find compact fluorescents that can be used in dimmer switches. Which is where the remaining incandescent in my house go. Now I almost feel guilted into giving up those too. Thanks!
the entire information equivalent for our global genome
Did anyone else get the visual of some intelligent being licking their chops while reading that plaque? If we actually send the DNA, maybe it would be like a variety pack. Maybe not-quite-so-advanced civilizations' plaques are traded around the universe like baseball card versions of Chinese menus.
Many problems can be blamed on individual states ramping up their budgets when "times were good", and living the high life.
Living the high life? I'm sorry I thought that was investment in infrastructure that had been ignored since the 60's. Tax cuts for the rich seems to be much more aligned with "living the high life" than fixing crumbling schools and environments.
As for entire blame on a President, you are correct. However, it wasn't Madeline Albright in India this spring telling the Indian business community that the President wouldn't do anything about outsourcing of jobs, it was Colin Powell. Even if you ignore the economic problems we've had since the good days, Bush has consistently supported policies that have exacerbated the situation for middle class Americans. The original poster's comment, while heavily oversimplified, was not without basis.
The President is also expected to lead the nation, to a degree. The President's complete lack of leadership, not to be confused with his arrogant stubbornness, is another reason people don't have jobs. How many people voted for Bush very cynically, believing he could get something done because of his connections and the people around him? What has he accomplished in the last 3.5 years? Higher levels of mercury in our nation's fresh water. Worst job creation record since Hoover. An economy that, at best, has some of the characteristics back that were lost during his Administration. Over extending our military, leaving us exposed to new dangers and old. No leadership on intelligence reform, even after report after report urging solutions. A record-breaking Federal budget deficit. Support for pork-barrel projects like Star Wars. Rolling back of environmental and labor protections.
W may not be personally responsible for a lot of the despair people are feeling these days, but he sure ain't doin shit to help.
Both candidates have endorsed invading Iraq, the only policy difference they have was the HOWTO. Do you honestly think we'd be in Iraq right now if John Kerry were president the last 3.5 years instead of W?
The accusations that Kerry was trying to get out of service contradicts his actions up to that point. He volunteered for the Navy. He volunteered for Swift Boat duty. Now he has some master plan to get out of Vietnam? On it's face this idea seems absurd. Even Howell, the guy who claims Kerry had this master plan cannot provide any evidence. Chris Matthews asked him directly if he had any evidence of John Kerry's "master plan", if John Kerry had ever mentioned it or anyone else had. Howell had no factual reason for his claims. The majority of the vets attacking Kerry never achieved higher rank than Kerry, meanwhile there are numerous vets, including Admiral Peaks (fmr Chairman of the Joint Cheifs) who are defending Kerry. Also Bill Rood, the only other Swift Boat capt. still alive from the ones with Kerry when he got the Silver Star, defended Kerry's record in the Sunday Chicago Tribune with a first person account. Who cares if Kerry accepted medals for wounds that weren't "really bad"? I'd take em too, it means more pay when you get out. He should only have declined them if he had not deserved them, what credible evidence is there that he didn't? Doesn't it go against his other actions of volunteering? Did a taste of Swift Boat action really change the mind of a man who "...came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and... devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by their superiors..."?
I just don't see the evidence for that.
I realize I was oversimplifying the second point. It's obviously a matter of how you define compassionate behavior and what not. While I agree with your last statement, I think that this idea that the government is some seperate entity is wrong. We are the government. When "the government" is doing something you don't like, it's your fellow citizens doing something you don't like. This is why law is based on definition of rights and not morality, my fellow citizen has no right to tell me how to lead my life unless I'm violating their rights. In high density areas, increased interaction leads to a greater understanding of each others rights and greater pressure on the need to define them. It's not a matter of allowing government intervention, it's a matter of having a larger number of "non-aggression pacts" with each other in order to get along in closer proximity. One could also argue that lower population density means a lower demand on resources, which makes self-reliance as an act of personal responsibility more inflated in rural areas compared to urban areas. In other words, it takes more work to survive city life successfully and independently than to do so in a rural area.
Not to mention the flow of tax dollars is from blue states to red states. Considering that urban dwellers are subsidizing rural dwellers' choice of lifestyle, I don't see how they can sit around and crow about self-reliance and not needing government.
Do you have evidence that Iran or Syria is bankrolling Sadr? I've heard these rumors and speculations, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. Sadr hasn't used anything that would not be available to him without state backing. It seems that unemployment, uncertainty and distrust play a far larger role in Sadr's strength than foreign backing.
I'll agree with you on the Iranian dissidents. I was pissed when W called Iran part of the Axis of Evil, because it gave the hardliners more excuses to crack down on dissidents. I don't think W has handled Iran well at all and I do think we should do what we can to support Iranian dissidents. Unfortunately, our credibility in Iran has been dead since we supported the Shah. I don't think there is much direct action we can take at all to help the dissidents in Iran. We might be able to funnel support through some allies like the UK, but I think direct action will help the hardliners more than the dissidents.
Another thing, I don't think this was the kind of invasion that the Iraqi dissidents had in mind when they thought it was a good idea. They may have been thinking more along the lines of the Peter Sellers movie "The Mouse that Roared", than what Rumsfeld and Co. had in mind.
First of all, Vietnam was about supporting the South Vietnamese, widely seen as a puppet government of the French and Americans, against a communist insurgency backed by communist states.
We are in Iraq supporting a government that is seen, to a lesser extent, as a puppet government of the US, fighting an insurgency which see's us as colonizers and a force against their own self-determination. How are we going to reconcile the insurgent forces against the suspect government? What if the Shiites win the election and the Sunni's get scared and decide not to recognize the election results? What if the Kurds decide that the Arab population threatens their autonomy?
You've simplified the goals in Iraq the same way they were simplified in Vietnam. It was only a matter of people accepting the South Vietnamese government in Vietnam. If the commies had just laid down their arms and played nicely, it could have been over. We may not be as deep in the hole in Iraq right now, as we were in Vietnam, but it could go either way. We've made a lot of the same mistakes in Iraq as we made in Vietnam, so I wouldn't be so sure we're on the right track.
It's not difficult to sell the claim that NYC is more compassionate than rural Indiana. More tax dollars go from NYC to rural Indiana than from rural Indiana to NYC. NYC provides many more public services and public assistance than you are likely to find in rural Indiana. These services are also provided on a larger scale than any public service in rural Indiana. Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay in a rural community, not in NYC. I'd say NYC is compassionate where it counts. If I'm a percieved threat to a rural community, they might kill me. NYC would just ignores me.
I understand the observation, I think it's more anecdotal than anything and that you can't find any correlation in our legal or social structure. It looks like one might get this impression if they were watching E! or MTV constantly, but serious discussion in politics and law do not support it. This relegates it to the gossip columns of the nation. Until someone comes along and proposes unreasonable criminal or tort immunity because your genes made you do it, I don't think it's a valid argument for serious discussion, unless you are discussing pop-psychology.
The posts I was replying to seem to deride this information as simply another excuse that some large number of people will use to abdicate responsibility for their poor choices. While I'm sure I'll see something of that sort next time I watch Springer or actually pay attention to the latest Hollywood screw-up, I don't think you can extrapolate this into a general tendency. I don't see any evidence that supports that.
Notice the parent I referred to: Is anything anyone's fault or decision anymore? Damn I remember when people were fat, drunk, gay, disruptive and Communist of their own volition. Now everything is a malady, issue and disease.
And the post I responded to: Interesting point. We seem to be living in a culture where it is becoming increasingly popular to explain away all personal responsibility for our actions. No one does anything anymore because they were drunk, stupid, angry, jealous, foolish, greedy or just not able to cope properly. Now its genetic predisposition and psychological forces at work. If these scientists/doctors/quacks are to believed its amazing we dont all just crumble completely into a blubbering mass under the pressure of all these external forces and influences we are subject to.
Both deride this news since it will be used to decrease personal responsibility. I argued that the opposite was true, which someone else may have argued as well on this thread, but I missed it. Treatment of any form (medical, therapeutic, spiritual, drugs, etc) is just a tool. I say that the personal responsibility comes when society recognizes that there is a tool to deal with any anti-social problem you might have. Society now expects you to use the tool. It's kind of like how you expect your suburban neighbor to use indoor plumbing. If you can afford to go live without indoor plumbing somewhere where it won't bother your neighbors, no one cares. If you live where your choice to not use a tool will violate the rights of others, society demands you use the tool.
I place your self-control tools and the medical tools in the same category. I don't care which one people use, quite frankly, it's none of my business. It's only my business when they violate someone else's rights. Back to my point, once these tools and knowledge become available, personal responsibility is automatically increased. If you suffer from a condition that doesn't completely incapacitate you, you have a level of responsibility to use whatever tools are available to keep from offending someone else's rights. Society can still be empathetic about an individual's struggle and still not excuse criminal behavior.
I think this discussion may also be confusing two types of characteristics, which is why I brought up alcoholism and homosexuality. Homosexuality doesn't give anyone more reason to violate someone else's rights than anymore than having a particular eye color. Alcoholism, on the other hand, does tend to increase the chances that you will violate someone's rights. If you do, society demands you mitigate your behavior using the tools society has available. When I refer to society demanding use of these tools, I'm referring to characteristics like alcoholism where someone's rights have been violated. In those cases, I don't care which tools make them self-reliant and responsible. In other cases, like homosexuality, I don't think society has any right to ask someone to do anything about these characteristics. I also think that it's "not a world I want to live in" if society oversteps it's boundaries in an attempt to change characteristics that do no violate rights. To me, that can either come in the form of de facto or government coercion and both are unacceptable.
Vietnam is a surrogate issue for Iraq. Since no one can seem to criticize any current policy in a way that doesn't have some crowd screaming for their blood, and Iraq is turning into anther Vietnam, the argument of Vietnam is how people are talking about Iraq without having to risk being ostracised for saying something unpopular.
Look at it. Bush totally screwed up getting us in there. Like during Vietnam, we didn't understand the situation we were going into, same in Iraq. See Robert S. McNamara's book on this. Like Vietnam, we don't have a clear exit strategy or set of goals. Are we willing to accept any sort of Islamic state in Iraq? What about the Kurds? The only real difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the insugency doesn't have any state backing them with weapons. People are arguing that Kerry can handle Iraq better by pimping his actions in Vietnam and afterward. The opposition is trying to detract from that since their own guy can't really run on his record, but no one can say that because then you're not supporting the troops or something insane like that.
This is just my observation of the subtext happening in the media. I could be completely off and Occam's Razor may apply, so feel free to ignore this.
Anyway, fear is fueled by isolation, compasion is fueled by interaction, which helps with empathy. That's why rural places trend towards conservative and urban areas trend towards liberal. It's also why you see weird paradoxes between the two as well, like people who manage to isolate themselves in urban areas. There are other factors, like availability of opportunity, but that should provide some explanation for your observation.
I have a feeling that you and the parent are falling on the Red Brain side. First of all, there's no logical basis for the argument that a doctors diagnosis now alleviates personal responsibility. If you get drunk and kill someone, you may have been incapacitated by alcohol, but you chose to get drunk and therefore are culpable. This awareness that a particular way of thinking is part of your biological makeup doesn't give you a pass, it increases you're responsibility since it is now a defined problem which you have a responsibility to fix.
There is an extreme difference between someone having a genetic predisposition to be an alcoholic and having one for homosexuality. Being gay doesn't cause you to violate someone else's rights, whereas alcoholism seems to ratchet that risk up through the roof. Until the 1930's there was no widespread, successful, way of dealing with alcoholism. Alcoholics were treated as seriously mentally ill. Instead of being rehabilitated into productive, self-reliant citizens, many times they were lobotomized and institutionalized.
After the 30's people started to understand alcoholism and people who wound up alcoholic were expected to act responsibly and use one of the many avenues now available to them to become responsible citizens instead of criminals. Now we know that predisposition for addiction can be passed on genetically, but we don't allow anyone to just get away with lapsing into that behavior.
Self-Knowledge increases responsibility, arguing otherwise is a slippery-slope based on a false dichotomy.
I don't know enough about Australian politics to compare it to it's use here, historically or modern. It's not a relative antonym to conservatism in the sense it was used to describe the Founding Fathers of the US. Liberalism was a political extension of Enlightenment philosophy. If you understand the foundations and logic behind the classical big L liberalism of the time, you'll see that the current US "progressives" and Democrats adhear to this ideology more closely than any other US party. The relative use of liberal is meant to substitute for radical. The Republicans here use the term conservative to cover up their radical ideas. They try to paint the ideas they disagree with as liberal and then try to use guilt by association to make them seem radical. In the US at least, liberal is not supposed to be synonymous with radical, it is supposed to follow the ideals of the Revolution. The main ideal is the equal recognition and protection of rights.
The Founding Fathers believed in a litany of rights, property rights were just one aspect of it. Property rights are only absolute in possession. Your right to posses a gun and use it for your benefit does not give you the right to endanger my rights with it. You don't have an automatic right to act irresponsibly if doing so infringes on my rights. High rates of taxation have nothing to do with your property rights as long as you have representation. You can't confuse the two. Besides, the Dems propose progressive tax systems like Adam Smith did. Bush has started talking crap about a flat tax or a national sales tax, both of which would be regressive.
We have had communal rights, like water rights since the beginning of civilization. The increase in rights has coincided with urbanization, increase in complexity of society, increase in the education of societies members. I didn't care how much mercury you poured into the river till I found out it caused neurological problems. This idea expands to environmental regulations, labor law, organized labor, regulation of business, progressive tax codes and affirmative action.
The group of Founding Fathers that were libertarians were the Anti-Federalists. They were beaten desicively in the Federalist Papers. They lost, libertarianism died, get over it. The Democrats represents the best of the Federalists, while upholding the Anti-Federalist ideas of absolute protection of rights. I've found that most libertarians have a limited understanding of the American Revolution, have serious holes in their theories and cannot show it's ideological progression through Western Civilization.
As far as the 2nd Amendment, I agree with the Supreme Court, which treats it like the 1st. There is freedom of speech, but commercial speech may be regulated, you can't yell fire in a theatre and you can't violate valid obscentiy laws. I don't think guns should be as freely available as they are now. I have no desire to remove the ability of responsible owners and sportsmen to own and fire guns. People should not be allowed to arm themselves like private armies. Weapons of war should not be owned by citizens, personal weapons are perfectly fine though. I don't believe in an absolutist interpretation on either side of the fence. I think there's some fine tuning that needs to happen, but since you don't have the right of rebellion, so I don't see how you can claim absolutism with the 2nd.
The point was that if you want to associate left-wing wackos with the Dems, then you logically must associate right-wing wackos with the GOP. Besides, do you really think voting KKK members are rallying for Kerry this year? The remnants of Southern racism haven't been hiding out in the Democratic Party... I dare you to prove otherwise.
As for your assertion of small governments instead of big government, it's non-sensical. You can't base a political party on some vague idea about the size of government. The Founding Fathers believed in right-sized government. They placed no virtue on the size of any government. They believed that rights must be defended, if the government was not defending the rights of it's citizens, then it had no business doing it. Now, where you wind up losing the small government argument is that the Founding Fathers also believed in the Right of Opportunity. In other words, they believed as long as there was fair opportunity for each person to create wealth, the Federalist democratic system would survive. The Libertarians like to crow about how they are the ideological descendents of the Founding Fathers, they're not. The closest group they resemble are the Anti-Federalists, who lost, now get over it. The liberalism of the Founding Fathers is the same as the liberalism of the Progressive movement, it's just that a lot of people misinterpret the liberalism of the Founding Fathers through a prism of American Mythology. Not to mention that under Clinton, the size of the Federal government fell per capita to pre-FDR levels. The Democrats can provide the right of opportunity on the cheap, better than the right, who simply want to deny any expansion of rights. Denying the expansion of rights in the face of overwhelming evidence would be abhorred by most of the Founding Fathers. Some of the virulent Anti-Federalists might agree with you, but they became marginalized.
As far as trying to paint me as a libertarian, please. Republicans have tried to say they agree with me too. When I look at what the leaders of any political party are saying, when I read their thinkers books and listen to their speeches, the Democratic Party is currently making the most sense. The Libertarians have no concept of modern society and seek to bring back the failures of the Articles of Confederation. The GOP is a cultural bog of pseudo libertarians, traditionalists, corpratists and theocrats. There's a reason they got 8% of the black vote and 22% of the latino vote. The American Greens are ineffectual idealists who eschew wealth and thus eschew power, not to mention they sometimes resort to leftist theocratic arguments. I won't even get into the Reform Party or the Natural Law guys.
I've done my homework, I've read the documents, the analysis, the history. I continue to do it. All of my research says that the Progressive movement in America, which is best explimpified in the modern Democratic Party, is the best hope to fufill my duty of insuring the survival of the ideals of the American Revolution. They are my best bet to have the rights afforded me by the Revolution, and the struggle since, protected.
I may have misattributed that quote to him.... I'm trying to find the reference. It was definately one of the looney pundits though.
I think Boortz is on my ignore list, so I usually don't drag him out except in extreme comparisons like the one above. I could have gotten him mixed up with another one like Savage on the ignore list. Anyway, I think the point still stands.
I wouldn't really be shocked. That's why I've been telling people who consider themselves GOP that they're being fooled and used.
The leadership of the GOP and groups like the Christian Coalition are cultural bigots. I can explain it over a long discussion, and there are cultural bigots on the left. People like Janeane Garofalo are Yankee cultural bigots who think that everyone down South just votes GOP cause they're racist, ignorant inbreds who bring out all the bad Christian stereotypes. I don't agree with that thinking, and neither do people like Kerry or Clinton or Gore. One of the reasons that Southern Dems have been so successful is that they dispel most of these cultural bigotry and stick to issues. The right moves to cultural bigotry because they can't win on the issues using logic. They must resort to demagoguery in order get enough support and distract from the real issues.
I don't require cultural traditionalism or moral superiority to support my political beliefs. I can disassociate my culture and my religious beliefs from my political rational. So while I may not like the culture of some of my political opponents (or allies), I understand that their right to live as they see fit protects my right to do so. I understand that law can only be used to defend rights, not morality. My alliances are based on these principles, if my political ally moves from wanting to legislate protection of rights to legislating morality or culture, then they become my political enemy on that issue. On the other hand, I don't discount moral reasons for a policy that coincide with it's logical basis in the definition of rights. To me that's just another reason to support or oppose an issue and a way to find commonality with other voters but, it should never be a sole basis.
If you listen to the usual banter surrounding politicians in this country, they will talk about morality and values all day long. If you look at the speeches and writings by Progressive Democrats, they depend on rights as the basis for their policies. Bill Clinton said in a recent interview that he believed in internal logical consistency in the Constituion and the political ideology of this country's founding.
If you really want to find out about this stuff, read Bernard Bailyn's "Ideological Origins of the American Revolution". Bailyn won two Pulitzers for History in the 60's for his research on the American Revolution. He covers a lot of ground and does so in the context of the Revolution, instead of a modern post-mortem.
Jefferson wasn't trying to fund any of this. Bush is giving money to the Moonies for abstinence based sex ed. Jefferson treated the church services in House like renting out a community center. It was voluntary and it was more of a cultural exchange as the service invited different religions to lead it. Bush's promotion of religion is very different. Jefferson practiced tolerence, Bush practices advocacy.
Somehow, UN corruption doesn't seem as much of a problem for America as say Enron corruption. Maybe I have different priorities than you, but I just see crony capitalism as doing more harm to me personally than anything the UN has done.
On Iraq: 1) No intelligence agency believed Saddam had capabilities to the extent the Bush Administration claimed. 2) The US Congress believed that Bush would make more of a diplomatic effort before using the authorized war powers. 3) The military doctrines were superseded by civilian planning, which left us short of man power to win the peace. 4) Bush ignored the findings of the weapons inspectors and the progress being made in Iraqi containment. 5) If you think Bush and Co. is capable of bringing democracy to Iraq, you should go read about Vietamization. 6) Bush promised not to go to war without UN approval and then went anyway. 7) Iraq sapped our ability to win the peace in Afghanistan 8) Our military is currently stretched too thin because of Iraq, the big stick is busy so we can't threaten anyone with it right now. 9) Up to 90% of people in Europe didn't and don't support the Iraqi invasion, how would it be politically feasible for their leaders to support us? You don't need a UN scandal to explain the political opposition. 10) Bush ignored the Palestinian issue in favor of giving Saddam attention. That was bassackwards. 11) Dick Cheney is still claiming there's a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. 12) Bush was not the first president to suggest a Palestinian state, Clinton almost achieved it
This idea about forcibly killing PanIslamic movements is stupid. Completely and utterly without merit. No one is ignoring the fact that there are militant Islamic theocrats who want to create a unified religious state in the middle east and dominate the world in the name of Islam. The problem is the approach in dealing with them. You cannot simply kill stuff like that off. We've tried that before. The only way to defeat the threat these people pose is to marginalize them. The easiest way to marginalize them is through prosperity and modernity for the average person. War is not the answer. Had we concentrated on turning Afghanistan into a secular democratic state dominated by Islamic culture, we could have a friendly base from which to export our system and ideals to Central Asia and the Middle East.
Noah Webster, a law student asked to write in support of the Federalists by Hamilton and Madison, noted that the morality that the Federalist ideas would rely upon to remain viable was really relative equality in wealth. This does not mean that they were arguing for equal distribution of wealth like socialism, they were arguing that their system did not depend on moral men, but on a ratio: the concentration of wealth. If you observe the development of democracy and moderate modern states in the rest of the world, you see that where there is opportunity for the majority of citizens to achieve and maintain a certain level of wealth, democracy and centrism prevails.
This is why land reforms and redistribution of wealth has been such an issue in post-colonial nations. This is why socialism and communism have been so seductive to these people. Wealth is real political power, regardless of the system you set up. If the average citizen cannot achieve a certain minimal level of wealth, then they have no real political power and thus become a marginalized underclass, creating a hotbed for rebellion and injustice.
There is nothing wrong with Islam or Arab culture. Nothing any more wrong than Southern culture in the US, in fact, some of the parallels dealing with social stratification and honor are strong. These countries simply need help in determining how to integrate to good and proven ideas from the West into their own cultures and nations. Knee-jerk opposition to Communism and Socialism has exacerbated any problems created by the legacy of colonialism, knee-jerk reactionary responses to radical Islam will do the same.
This is one of the stupidest reasons I've ever heard for wanting Bush to win. Does this mean you prefer the theocrat "Bush is a moral man" or "The rich are the only ones who innovate and create jobs" type idiots who are voting for Bush? Maybe you support the Neil Boortz "we should turn Najaf into a glass parking lot" type of idiots that support Bush.
If you make political choices based on the fringes of the political parties, you should be voting Democrat, they at least know how to marginalize their loonies, the GOP let's em run the asylum. And how is this opinion Insightful? I'd rather see Kerry win because 9 out of 10 KKK members support Bush? You vote based on ignorant Bubba's in white robes? Maybe the GOP will learn when Bush loses? These aren't serious political strategies, they're akin to stoner dorm room conversations.
This is why the GOP fails to impress me, I've yet to see a serious person with real ideas or any grasp of reality claim that Bush is a good president. This buffoon is quite literally, the absolute worst Presidential Administration this country has ever had. This guy is worse than Nixon, worse than Jackson, worse than Grant or Hoover. He makes Wilson look like a saint. I want this whole crowd of incompetent fools gone. They aren't worth the tax dollars wasted on them.
Every problem that has arisen from Bush policies has been predicted. No result that the Bush Administration claimed would come from their policy has actually happened. More often than not, the results their critics have predicted have come to pass. These idiots are seemingly incapable of rational thought or any grasp of reality. Their tax policies have failed to create jobs. Their energy policies haven't done shit for foreign dependence or better energy markets. We have no coherent strategy for dealing with terrorism. "YeeHaw" is not a foreign policy. Wages are falling, jobs are leaving and there are no new industries or markets replacing what's disappearing. We are going further into debt as a nation. This administration has been squandering every great resource we've given it access to. They've squandered our reputation internationally. They've squandered our wealth, and they squander our environment.
These people are cultural bigots who don't grasp anything outside their own limited experience. They believe they have some sort of monopoly on truth and are willing to do anything to gain power. Our system was set up so that the people would have the ability to stop individuals just like this. The Bush Administration advocates for every scenario our Founding Fathers warned would destroy the Revolution. The Bush policies encourage concentration of wealth, mingling of culture and religion with government, and they can't keep state secrets, SECRET.
Between the Valerie Plame incident and that Khan computer guy, who was a freaking Pakistani mole, these guys might as well give Osama a swipe card for the Pentagon. They are incompetent, screw em, I'll take any marginalizable loonies over these nut jobs with power any day.
Then we have to deal with average people joining the Republican party just because it offers a sane choice compared to the nutjob left wingers. Hell, even crazies like Anne Coulter seem sane compared to hacker groups actively working to break the law in the name of democracy.
I'm sorry, but how can you honestly claim that these people, with the maturity level of 12 year olds, are somehow politically related to Clinton, Kerry, Cleland, Obama or anyone else who is taken seriously by Democratic Party? Janet Reno would have prosecuted these losers just as quickly as any other criminal. If you are willing to associate these idiots with the Democratic Party, then you also have to associate McVeigh, the KKK and the majority of right wing nuts listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with the GOP. Besides, these little kids might be misguided about democracy, but the right just cares about power, which concerns me a lot more.
Personally, I'd rather be associated with script kiddies, who just need to be taken out behind the woodshed once to straighten them out, than racist wacko nutjob terrorists like the KKK and it's spinoffs. Who's worse, vandals or terrorists?
I'm a liberal because the Founding Fathers were liberals. I'm a liberal because this country is a liberal secular democratic republic. I'm a liberal because I believe in the American Revolution. I don't really give a rat's ass if someone else has managed to confuse their culture or religion with the business of the government of the US, it doesn't make their ideas valid. I'm a liberal because I believe that a political system of ideas must be internally logically consistent. Everytime I go applying scientific analysis to the historical record, to the original writings that formed the ideology behind the American Revolution, I come out looking liberal. I can logically and rationally defend my political positions and can do so consistently. That's why I'm a liberal, and anyone can try and criticize me for it all they want, but they still haven't beaten me in a debate. I'm a liberal, because intellectual conservatism is dead.
<troll>Oh, and I also think that Ayn Rand was an idiot and libertarians are, for the most part, the most politically naive group I've ever run across. They're much more fun when they're drunk and trying to defend their ideology, cause when they're sober, it's just sad</troll>
However you are skipping a significat amount of time between the launch and the attacks of "wagging the dog". After the initial attack the vast majority of right wings were with him and felt it was about time, it was only after time when it became ovious that the only time he was going to attack were when clinton wanted them to be the headlines not the investigation into him. The most disagreement about the initial attacks were that they were against insignificant locations that were of minor or no value to the enemy.
The attack was on August 20th, 1998. On August 21, David Corn wrote an article on Salon noting the press corps asking of this question. Christopher Hitchens, by that time a rabid Clinton-hater, made the accusation shortly after. It was also brought up by GOP Senators Specter and Coats. The GOP just didn't want anything to take attention away from their ludicrous witch-hunt. See "Sacred Age of Terror" by Benjamin and Simon for a complete account.
The rest is filled with so many leftist lies it is not worth discussing.
Then you should have no problem refuting my assertions. It's odd that while I cite specific references, people and dates, you simply chock it up to "leftist lies". Did Rumsfeld use the full force of the US in Tora Bora or N. Alliance irregulars? Didn't the Joint Cheifs claim that half a million troops would be needed for peacekeeping in Bosnia or for any other ground offensive? How many resources did Louis Freeh direct at Whitewater related investigations vs. domestic searches for terrorism?
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That's why I stated that both the far-right and far-left are motivated by morality. That commonality is why you see diametrically opposed groups adopting the same tactics and basis for authority. In my moderate opinion, it makes both of them invalid as political ideology, they're still fighting Becket vs. Henry II or Pope Gregory VII's Papal Reform. That's not to say that their aren't issues that either group advocates aren't valid political topics, it's that their morality based ideology which provides basis for authority is invalid. Moderates can take up fringe issues once a valid basis for authority is found.
Valid basis for authority must be distilled from precedent and principle. It must also allow the entire body of law to remain internally consistent and logical.
That's an utterly crap explanation. Conservatives have a literal interpretation of the Constitution to match their literal interpretation of the Bible. The Liberals have an interpretation based on the principles and ideology of the Constitution to match their spiritual, running throught the fields interprative dance ideology of religion (or lack thereof).
Ultimately, the current "Conservative" movement in America represents a cultural movement rather than a coherent political ideology, in other words, Intellectual Conservatism is dead. Liberals however, have recast themselves as Progressives to avoid association with the self-marginalizing far-left. The far-left is about as unintellectual as the far-right these days, both seem to be driven by moral worldviews than valid political ideology. The moderates on the Conservative side, those that still retain an actual political ideology, have been marginalized by culturally motivated groups like the Christian Coalition. The moderates on the Liberal side, after watching the far-left self-marginalize, now dominate the Left and only have to worry about the far-left getting too much voice while they fight off the far-right. Meanwhile, the moderate right is sitting on it's ass, still in complete denial that it has been marginalized by loonies.
I'm sure someone will consider this flaimbait or nonsense, but it's a hell of a lot more accurate than the parent.
I thought that interview was scheduled for this Sunday night.
Paul Begala and James Carville are political commentators paired against Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak. Robert Novak has been doing hatchet work for the GOP for so long, Begala and Carville joining the Kerry campaign is hardly a indictment of CNN. Both Begala and Carville only appear on Crossfire and as political analysts and are almost always paired off.
If you think CNN is liberal, then you've jumped off the far right edge of the cliff, or your trolling. CNN gored Gore as much as anyone else and has given the Bushies as much room to spread their propoganda as any other news organization, except Fox.
In order for your statement to have any truth CNN would have had to fire Tucker Carlson and Robert Novak, although I think Novak should have been fired for the Plame incident. Let me guess your defense, Tucker Carlson is really a liberal because he has a show on PBS now.
My fiance needs to be able to get a light on immediatly when I go into one of those, as its the only thing that snaps me out of them. Considering that I have been know to both do damage to the room, and to attack her during a night-terror, we both want to have no delay in getting that light on.
Greenpeace called, they made an exception for you for this one instance. Just don't let it happen again.
Excuse the sarcasm, but dear lord! I thought you were going to bring up the fact that it's near impossible to find compact fluorescents that can be used in dimmer switches. Which is where the remaining incandescent in my house go. Now I almost feel guilted into giving up those too. Thanks!
the entire information equivalent for our global genome
Did anyone else get the visual of some intelligent being licking their chops while reading that plaque?
If we actually send the DNA, maybe it would be like a variety pack. Maybe not-quite-so-advanced civilizations' plaques are traded around the universe like baseball card versions of Chinese menus.
Second that... Either they release an RFC implimentable by OSS, or it doesn't get used.
Didn't MS learn this lesson back in '95 with Blackbird?
Many problems can be blamed on individual states ramping up their budgets when "times were good", and living the high life.
Living the high life? I'm sorry I thought that was investment in infrastructure that had been ignored since the 60's. Tax cuts for the rich seems to be much more aligned with "living the high life" than fixing crumbling schools and environments.
As for entire blame on a President, you are correct. However, it wasn't Madeline Albright in India this spring telling the Indian business community that the President wouldn't do anything about outsourcing of jobs, it was Colin Powell. Even if you ignore the economic problems we've had since the good days, Bush has consistently supported policies that have exacerbated the situation for middle class Americans. The original poster's comment, while heavily oversimplified, was not without basis.
The President is also expected to lead the nation, to a degree. The President's complete lack of leadership, not to be confused with his arrogant stubbornness, is another reason people don't have jobs. How many people voted for Bush very cynically, believing he could get something done because of his connections and the people around him? What has he accomplished in the last 3.5 years? Higher levels of mercury in our nation's fresh water. Worst job creation record since Hoover. An economy that, at best, has some of the characteristics back that were lost during his Administration. Over extending our military, leaving us exposed to new dangers and old. No leadership on intelligence reform, even after report after report urging solutions. A record-breaking Federal budget deficit. Support for pork-barrel projects like Star Wars. Rolling back of environmental and labor protections.
W may not be personally responsible for a lot of the despair people are feeling these days, but he sure ain't doin shit to help.
Both candidates have endorsed invading Iraq, the only policy difference they have was the HOWTO.
... devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by their superiors..."?
Do you honestly think we'd be in Iraq right now if John Kerry were president the last 3.5 years instead of W?
The accusations that Kerry was trying to get out of service contradicts his actions up to that point. He volunteered for the Navy. He volunteered for Swift Boat duty. Now he has some master plan to get out of Vietnam? On it's face this idea seems absurd. Even Howell, the guy who claims Kerry had this master plan cannot provide any evidence. Chris Matthews asked him directly if he had any evidence of John Kerry's "master plan", if John Kerry had ever mentioned it or anyone else had. Howell had no factual reason for his claims. The majority of the vets attacking Kerry never achieved higher rank than Kerry, meanwhile there are numerous vets, including Admiral Peaks (fmr Chairman of the Joint Cheifs) who are defending Kerry. Also Bill Rood, the only other Swift Boat capt. still alive from the ones with Kerry when he got the Silver Star, defended Kerry's record in the Sunday Chicago Tribune with a first person account. Who cares if Kerry accepted medals for wounds that weren't "really bad"? I'd take em too, it means more pay when you get out. He should only have declined them if he had not deserved them, what credible evidence is there that he didn't? Doesn't it go against his other actions of volunteering? Did a taste of Swift Boat action really change the mind of a man who "...came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and
I just don't see the evidence for that.
I realize I was oversimplifying the second point. It's obviously a matter of how you define compassionate behavior and what not. While I agree with your last statement, I think that this idea that the government is some seperate entity is wrong. We are the government. When "the government" is doing something you don't like, it's your fellow citizens doing something you don't like. This is why law is based on definition of rights and not morality, my fellow citizen has no right to tell me how to lead my life unless I'm violating their rights. In high density areas, increased interaction leads to a greater understanding of each others rights and greater pressure on the need to define them. It's not a matter of allowing government intervention, it's a matter of having a larger number of "non-aggression pacts" with each other in order to get along in closer proximity. One could also argue that lower population density means a lower demand on resources, which makes self-reliance as an act of personal responsibility more inflated in rural areas compared to urban areas. In other words, it takes more work to survive city life successfully and independently than to do so in a rural area.
Not to mention the flow of tax dollars is from blue states to red states. Considering that urban dwellers are subsidizing rural dwellers' choice of lifestyle, I don't see how they can sit around and crow about self-reliance and not needing government.
Do you have evidence that Iran or Syria is bankrolling Sadr? I've heard these rumors and speculations, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. Sadr hasn't used anything that would not be available to him without state backing. It seems that unemployment, uncertainty and distrust play a far larger role in Sadr's strength than foreign backing.
I'll agree with you on the Iranian dissidents. I was pissed when W called Iran part of the Axis of Evil, because it gave the hardliners more excuses to crack down on dissidents. I don't think W has handled Iran well at all and I do think we should do what we can to support Iranian dissidents. Unfortunately, our credibility in Iran has been dead since we supported the Shah. I don't think there is much direct action we can take at all to help the dissidents in Iran. We might be able to funnel support through some allies like the UK, but I think direct action will help the hardliners more than the dissidents.
Another thing, I don't think this was the kind of invasion that the Iraqi dissidents had in mind when they thought it was a good idea. They may have been thinking more along the lines of the Peter Sellers movie "The Mouse that Roared", than what Rumsfeld and Co. had in mind.
First of all, Vietnam was about supporting the South Vietnamese, widely seen as a puppet government of the French and Americans, against a communist insurgency backed by communist states.
We are in Iraq supporting a government that is seen, to a lesser extent, as a puppet government of the US, fighting an insurgency which see's us as colonizers and a force against their own self-determination. How are we going to reconcile the insurgent forces against the suspect government? What if the Shiites win the election and the Sunni's get scared and decide not to recognize the election results? What if the Kurds decide that the Arab population threatens their autonomy?
You've simplified the goals in Iraq the same way they were simplified in Vietnam. It was only a matter of people accepting the South Vietnamese government in Vietnam. If the commies had just laid down their arms and played nicely, it could have been over. We may not be as deep in the hole in Iraq right now, as we were in Vietnam, but it could go either way. We've made a lot of the same mistakes in Iraq as we made in Vietnam, so I wouldn't be so sure we're on the right track.
It's not difficult to sell the claim that NYC is more compassionate than rural Indiana. More tax dollars go from NYC to rural Indiana than from rural Indiana to NYC. NYC provides many more public services and public assistance than you are likely to find in rural Indiana. These services are also provided on a larger scale than any public service in rural Indiana. Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay in a rural community, not in NYC. I'd say NYC is compassionate where it counts. If I'm a percieved threat to a rural community, they might kill me. NYC would just ignores me.
I understand the observation, I think it's more anecdotal than anything and that you can't find any correlation in our legal or social structure. It looks like one might get this impression if they were watching E! or MTV constantly, but serious discussion in politics and law do not support it. This relegates it to the gossip columns of the nation. Until someone comes along and proposes unreasonable criminal or tort immunity because your genes made you do it, I don't think it's a valid argument for serious discussion, unless you are discussing pop-psychology.
The posts I was replying to seem to deride this information as simply another excuse that some large number of people will use to abdicate responsibility for their poor choices. While I'm sure I'll see something of that sort next time I watch Springer or actually pay attention to the latest Hollywood screw-up, I don't think you can extrapolate this into a general tendency. I don't see any evidence that supports that.
Notice the parent I referred to:
Is anything anyone's fault or decision anymore? Damn I remember when people were fat, drunk, gay, disruptive and Communist of their own volition. Now everything is a malady, issue and disease.
And the post I responded to:
Interesting point. We seem to be living in a culture where it is becoming increasingly popular to explain away all personal responsibility for our actions. No one does anything anymore because they were drunk, stupid, angry, jealous, foolish, greedy or just not able to cope properly. Now its genetic predisposition and psychological forces at work. If these scientists/doctors/quacks are to believed its amazing we dont all just crumble completely into a blubbering mass under the pressure of all these external forces and influences we are subject to.
Both deride this news since it will be used to decrease personal responsibility. I argued that the opposite was true, which someone else may have argued as well on this thread, but I missed it. Treatment of any form (medical, therapeutic, spiritual, drugs, etc) is just a tool. I say that the personal responsibility comes when society recognizes that there is a tool to deal with any anti-social problem you might have. Society now expects you to use the tool. It's kind of like how you expect your suburban neighbor to use indoor plumbing. If you can afford to go live without indoor plumbing somewhere where it won't bother your neighbors, no one cares. If you live where your choice to not use a tool will violate the rights of others, society demands you use the tool.
I place your self-control tools and the medical tools in the same category. I don't care which one people use, quite frankly, it's none of my business. It's only my business when they violate someone else's rights. Back to my point, once these tools and knowledge become available, personal responsibility is automatically increased. If you suffer from a condition that doesn't completely incapacitate you, you have a level of responsibility to use whatever tools are available to keep from offending someone else's rights. Society can still be empathetic about an individual's struggle and still not excuse criminal behavior.
I think this discussion may also be confusing two types of characteristics, which is why I brought up alcoholism and homosexuality. Homosexuality doesn't give anyone more reason to violate someone else's rights than anymore than having a particular eye color. Alcoholism, on the other hand, does tend to increase the chances that you will violate someone's rights. If you do, society demands you mitigate your behavior using the tools society has available. When I refer to society demanding use of these tools, I'm referring to characteristics like alcoholism where someone's rights have been violated. In those cases, I don't care which tools make them self-reliant and responsible. In other cases, like homosexuality, I don't think society has any right to ask someone to do anything about these characteristics. I also think that it's "not a world I want to live in" if society oversteps it's boundaries in an attempt to change characteristics that do no violate rights. To me, that can either come in the form of de facto or government coercion and both are unacceptable.
Vietnam is a surrogate issue for Iraq. Since no one can seem to criticize any current policy in a way that doesn't have some crowd screaming for their blood, and Iraq is turning into anther Vietnam, the argument of Vietnam is how people are talking about Iraq without having to risk being ostracised for saying something unpopular.
Look at it. Bush totally screwed up getting us in there. Like during Vietnam, we didn't understand the situation we were going into, same in Iraq. See Robert S. McNamara's book on this. Like Vietnam, we don't have a clear exit strategy or set of goals. Are we willing to accept any sort of Islamic state in Iraq? What about the Kurds? The only real difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the insugency doesn't have any state backing them with weapons. People are arguing that Kerry can handle Iraq better by pimping his actions in Vietnam and afterward. The opposition is trying to detract from that since their own guy can't really run on his record, but no one can say that because then you're not supporting the troops or something insane like that.
This is just my observation of the subtext happening in the media. I could be completely off and Occam's Razor may apply, so feel free to ignore this.
Anyway, fear is fueled by isolation, compasion is fueled by interaction, which helps with empathy. That's why rural places trend towards conservative and urban areas trend towards liberal. It's also why you see weird paradoxes between the two as well, like people who manage to isolate themselves in urban areas. There are other factors, like availability of opportunity, but that should provide some explanation for your observation.
I have a feeling that you and the parent are falling on the Red Brain side. First of all, there's no logical basis for the argument that a doctors diagnosis now alleviates personal responsibility. If you get drunk and kill someone, you may have been incapacitated by alcohol, but you chose to get drunk and therefore are culpable. This awareness that a particular way of thinking is part of your biological makeup doesn't give you a pass, it increases you're responsibility since it is now a defined problem which you have a responsibility to fix.
There is an extreme difference between someone having a genetic predisposition to be an alcoholic and having one for homosexuality. Being gay doesn't cause you to violate someone else's rights, whereas alcoholism seems to ratchet that risk up through the roof. Until the 1930's there was no widespread, successful, way of dealing with alcoholism. Alcoholics were treated as seriously mentally ill. Instead of being rehabilitated into productive, self-reliant citizens, many times they were lobotomized and institutionalized.
After the 30's people started to understand alcoholism and people who wound up alcoholic were expected to act responsibly and use one of the many avenues now available to them to become responsible citizens instead of criminals. Now we know that predisposition for addiction can be passed on genetically, but we don't allow anyone to just get away with lapsing into that behavior.
Self-Knowledge increases responsibility, arguing otherwise is a slippery-slope based on a false dichotomy.
I don't know enough about Australian politics to compare it to it's use here, historically or modern. It's not a relative antonym to conservatism in the sense it was used to describe the Founding Fathers of the US. Liberalism was a political extension of Enlightenment philosophy. If you understand the foundations and logic behind the classical big L liberalism of the time, you'll see that the current US "progressives" and Democrats adhear to this ideology more closely than any other US party. The relative use of liberal is meant to substitute for radical. The Republicans here use the term conservative to cover up their radical ideas. They try to paint the ideas they disagree with as liberal and then try to use guilt by association to make them seem radical. In the US at least, liberal is not supposed to be synonymous with radical, it is supposed to follow the ideals of the Revolution. The main ideal is the equal recognition and protection of rights.
You're repeating mythology.
The Founding Fathers believed in a litany of rights, property rights were just one aspect of it. Property rights are only absolute in possession. Your right to posses a gun and use it for your benefit does not give you the right to endanger my rights with it. You don't have an automatic right to act irresponsibly if doing so infringes on my rights. High rates of taxation have nothing to do with your property rights as long as you have representation. You can't confuse the two. Besides, the Dems propose progressive tax systems like Adam Smith did. Bush has started talking crap about a flat tax or a national sales tax, both of which would be regressive.
We have had communal rights, like water rights since the beginning of civilization. The increase in rights has coincided with urbanization, increase in complexity of society, increase in the education of societies members. I didn't care how much mercury you poured into the river till I found out it caused neurological problems. This idea expands to environmental regulations, labor law, organized labor, regulation of business, progressive tax codes and affirmative action.
The group of Founding Fathers that were libertarians were the Anti-Federalists. They were beaten desicively in the Federalist Papers. They lost, libertarianism died, get over it. The Democrats represents the best of the Federalists, while upholding the Anti-Federalist ideas of absolute protection of rights. I've found that most libertarians have a limited understanding of the American Revolution, have serious holes in their theories and cannot show it's ideological progression through Western Civilization.
As far as the 2nd Amendment, I agree with the Supreme Court, which treats it like the 1st. There is freedom of speech, but commercial speech may be regulated, you can't yell fire in a theatre and you can't violate valid obscentiy laws. I don't think guns should be as freely available as they are now. I have no desire to remove the ability of responsible owners and sportsmen to own and fire guns. People should not be allowed to arm themselves like private armies. Weapons of war should not be owned by citizens, personal weapons are perfectly fine though. I don't believe in an absolutist interpretation on either side of the fence. I think there's some fine tuning that needs to happen, but since you don't have the right of rebellion, so I don't see how you can claim absolutism with the 2nd.
The point was that if you want to associate left-wing wackos with the Dems, then you logically must associate right-wing wackos with the GOP. Besides, do you really think voting KKK members are rallying for Kerry this year? The remnants of Southern racism haven't been hiding out in the Democratic Party... I dare you to prove otherwise.
As for your assertion of small governments instead of big government, it's non-sensical. You can't base a political party on some vague idea about the size of government. The Founding Fathers believed in right-sized government. They placed no virtue on the size of any government. They believed that rights must be defended, if the government was not defending the rights of it's citizens, then it had no business doing it. Now, where you wind up losing the small government argument is that the Founding Fathers also believed in the Right of Opportunity. In other words, they believed as long as there was fair opportunity for each person to create wealth, the Federalist democratic system would survive. The Libertarians like to crow about how they are the ideological descendents of the Founding Fathers, they're not. The closest group they resemble are the Anti-Federalists, who lost, now get over it. The liberalism of the Founding Fathers is the same as the liberalism of the Progressive movement, it's just that a lot of people misinterpret the liberalism of the Founding Fathers through a prism of American Mythology. Not to mention that under Clinton, the size of the Federal government fell per capita to pre-FDR levels. The Democrats can provide the right of opportunity on the cheap, better than the right, who simply want to deny any expansion of rights. Denying the expansion of rights in the face of overwhelming evidence would be abhorred by most of the Founding Fathers. Some of the virulent Anti-Federalists might agree with you, but they became marginalized.
As far as trying to paint me as a libertarian, please. Republicans have tried to say they agree with me too. When I look at what the leaders of any political party are saying, when I read their thinkers books and listen to their speeches, the Democratic Party is currently making the most sense. The Libertarians have no concept of modern society and seek to bring back the failures of the Articles of Confederation. The GOP is a cultural bog of pseudo libertarians, traditionalists, corpratists and theocrats. There's a reason they got 8% of the black vote and 22% of the latino vote. The American Greens are ineffectual idealists who eschew wealth and thus eschew power, not to mention they sometimes resort to leftist theocratic arguments. I won't even get into the Reform Party or the Natural Law guys.
I've done my homework, I've read the documents, the analysis, the history. I continue to do it. All of my research says that the Progressive movement in America, which is best explimpified in the modern Democratic Party, is the best hope to fufill my duty of insuring the survival of the ideals of the American Revolution. They are my best bet to have the rights afforded me by the Revolution, and the struggle since, protected.
I may have misattributed that quote to him.... I'm trying to find the reference. It was definately one of the looney pundits though.
I think Boortz is on my ignore list, so I usually don't drag him out except in extreme comparisons like the one above. I could have gotten him mixed up with another one like Savage on the ignore list. Anyway, I think the point still stands.
I wouldn't really be shocked. That's why I've been telling people who consider themselves GOP that they're being fooled and used.
The leadership of the GOP and groups like the Christian Coalition are cultural bigots. I can explain it over a long discussion, and there are cultural bigots on the left. People like Janeane Garofalo are Yankee cultural bigots who think that everyone down South just votes GOP cause they're racist, ignorant inbreds who bring out all the bad Christian stereotypes. I don't agree with that thinking, and neither do people like Kerry or Clinton or Gore. One of the reasons that Southern Dems have been so successful is that they dispel most of these cultural bigotry and stick to issues. The right moves to cultural bigotry because they can't win on the issues using logic. They must resort to demagoguery in order get enough support and distract from the real issues.
I don't require cultural traditionalism or moral superiority to support my political beliefs. I can disassociate my culture and my religious beliefs from my political rational. So while I may not like the culture of some of my political opponents (or allies), I understand that their right to live as they see fit protects my right to do so. I understand that law can only be used to defend rights, not morality. My alliances are based on these principles, if my political ally moves from wanting to legislate protection of rights to legislating morality or culture, then they become my political enemy on that issue. On the other hand, I don't discount moral reasons for a policy that coincide with it's logical basis in the definition of rights. To me that's just another reason to support or oppose an issue and a way to find commonality with other voters but, it should never be a sole basis.
If you listen to the usual banter surrounding politicians in this country, they will talk about morality and values all day long. If you look at the speeches and writings by Progressive Democrats, they depend on rights as the basis for their policies. Bill Clinton said in a recent interview that he believed in internal logical consistency in the Constituion and the political ideology of this country's founding.
If you really want to find out about this stuff, read Bernard Bailyn's "Ideological Origins of the American Revolution". Bailyn won two Pulitzers for History in the 60's for his research on the American Revolution. He covers a lot of ground and does so in the context of the Revolution, instead of a modern post-mortem.
Jefferson wasn't trying to fund any of this. Bush is giving money to the Moonies for abstinence based sex ed. Jefferson treated the church services in House like renting out a community center. It was voluntary and it was more of a cultural exchange as the service invited different religions to lead it. Bush's promotion of religion is very different. Jefferson practiced tolerence, Bush practices advocacy.
Somehow, UN corruption doesn't seem as much of a problem for America as say Enron corruption. Maybe I have different priorities than you, but I just see crony capitalism as doing more harm to me personally than anything the UN has done.
On Iraq:
1) No intelligence agency believed Saddam had capabilities to the extent the Bush Administration claimed.
2) The US Congress believed that Bush would make more of a diplomatic effort before using the authorized war powers.
3) The military doctrines were superseded by civilian planning, which left us short of man power to win the peace.
4) Bush ignored the findings of the weapons inspectors and the progress being made in Iraqi containment.
5) If you think Bush and Co. is capable of bringing democracy to Iraq, you should go read about Vietamization.
6) Bush promised not to go to war without UN approval and then went anyway.
7) Iraq sapped our ability to win the peace in Afghanistan
8) Our military is currently stretched too thin because of Iraq, the big stick is busy so we can't threaten anyone with it right now.
9) Up to 90% of people in Europe didn't and don't support the Iraqi invasion, how would it be politically feasible for their leaders to support us? You don't need a UN scandal to explain the political opposition.
10) Bush ignored the Palestinian issue in favor of giving Saddam attention. That was bassackwards.
11) Dick Cheney is still claiming there's a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.
12) Bush was not the first president to suggest a Palestinian state, Clinton almost achieved it
This idea about forcibly killing PanIslamic movements is stupid. Completely and utterly without merit. No one is ignoring the fact that there are militant Islamic theocrats who want to create a unified religious state in the middle east and dominate the world in the name of Islam. The problem is the approach in dealing with them. You cannot simply kill stuff like that off. We've tried that before. The only way to defeat the threat these people pose is to marginalize them. The easiest way to marginalize them is through prosperity and modernity for the average person. War is not the answer. Had we concentrated on turning Afghanistan into a secular democratic state dominated by Islamic culture, we could have a friendly base from which to export our system and ideals to Central Asia and the Middle East.
Noah Webster, a law student asked to write in support of the Federalists by Hamilton and Madison, noted that the morality that the Federalist ideas would rely upon to remain viable was really relative equality in wealth. This does not mean that they were arguing for equal distribution of wealth like socialism, they were arguing that their system did not depend on moral men, but on a ratio: the concentration of wealth. If you observe the development of democracy and moderate modern states in the rest of the world, you see that where there is opportunity for the majority of citizens to achieve and maintain a certain level of wealth, democracy and centrism prevails.
This is why land reforms and redistribution of wealth has been such an issue in post-colonial nations. This is why socialism and communism have been so seductive to these people. Wealth is real political power, regardless of the system you set up. If the average citizen cannot achieve a certain minimal level of wealth, then they have no real political power and thus become a marginalized underclass, creating a hotbed for rebellion and injustice.
There is nothing wrong with Islam or Arab culture. Nothing any more wrong than Southern culture in the US, in fact, some of the parallels dealing with social stratification and honor are strong. These countries simply need help in determining how to integrate to good and proven ideas from the West into their own cultures and nations. Knee-jerk opposition to Communism and Socialism has exacerbated any problems created by the legacy of colonialism, knee-jerk reactionary responses to radical Islam will do the same.
Bu
This is one of the stupidest reasons I've ever heard for wanting Bush to win. Does this mean you prefer the theocrat "Bush is a moral man" or "The rich are the only ones who innovate and create jobs" type idiots who are voting for Bush? Maybe you support the Neil Boortz "we should turn Najaf into a glass parking lot" type of idiots that support Bush.
If you make political choices based on the fringes of the political parties, you should be voting Democrat, they at least know how to marginalize their loonies, the GOP let's em run the asylum. And how is this opinion Insightful? I'd rather see Kerry win because 9 out of 10 KKK members support Bush? You vote based on ignorant Bubba's in white robes? Maybe the GOP will learn when Bush loses? These aren't serious political strategies, they're akin to stoner dorm room conversations.
This is why the GOP fails to impress me, I've yet to see a serious person with real ideas or any grasp of reality claim that Bush is a good president. This buffoon is quite literally, the absolute worst Presidential Administration this country has ever had. This guy is worse than Nixon, worse than Jackson, worse than Grant or Hoover. He makes Wilson look like a saint. I want this whole crowd of incompetent fools gone. They aren't worth the tax dollars wasted on them.
Every problem that has arisen from Bush policies has been predicted. No result that the Bush Administration claimed would come from their policy has actually happened. More often than not, the results their critics have predicted have come to pass. These idiots are seemingly incapable of rational thought or any grasp of reality. Their tax policies have failed to create jobs. Their energy policies haven't done shit for foreign dependence or better energy markets. We have no coherent strategy for dealing with terrorism. "YeeHaw" is not a foreign policy. Wages are falling, jobs are leaving and there are no new industries or markets replacing what's disappearing. We are going further into debt as a nation. This administration has been squandering every great resource we've given it access to. They've squandered our reputation internationally. They've squandered our wealth, and they squander our environment.
These people are cultural bigots who don't grasp anything outside their own limited experience. They believe they have some sort of monopoly on truth and are willing to do anything to gain power. Our system was set up so that the people would have the ability to stop individuals just like this. The Bush Administration advocates for every scenario our Founding Fathers warned would destroy the Revolution. The Bush policies encourage concentration of wealth, mingling of culture and religion with government, and they can't keep state secrets, SECRET.
Between the Valerie Plame incident and that Khan computer guy, who was a freaking Pakistani mole, these guys might as well give Osama a swipe card for the Pentagon. They are incompetent, screw em, I'll take any marginalizable loonies over these nut jobs with power any day.
Then we have to deal with average people joining the Republican party just because it offers a sane choice compared to the nutjob left wingers. Hell, even crazies like Anne Coulter seem sane compared to hacker groups actively working to break the law in the name of democracy.
I'm sorry, but how can you honestly claim that these people, with the maturity level of 12 year olds, are somehow politically related to Clinton, Kerry, Cleland, Obama or anyone else who is taken seriously by Democratic Party? Janet Reno would have prosecuted these losers just as quickly as any other criminal. If you are willing to associate these idiots with the Democratic Party, then you also have to associate McVeigh, the KKK and the majority of right wing nuts listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with the GOP. Besides, these little kids might be misguided about democracy, but the right just cares about power, which concerns me a lot more.
Personally, I'd rather be associated with script kiddies, who just need to be taken out behind the woodshed once to straighten them out, than racist wacko nutjob terrorists like the KKK and it's spinoffs. Who's worse, vandals or terrorists?
I'm a liberal because the Founding Fathers were liberals. I'm a liberal because this country is a liberal secular democratic republic. I'm a liberal because I believe in the American Revolution. I don't really give a rat's ass if someone else has managed to confuse their culture or religion with the business of the government of the US, it doesn't make their ideas valid. I'm a liberal because I believe that a political system of ideas must be internally logically consistent. Everytime I go applying scientific analysis to the historical record, to the original writings that formed the ideology behind the American Revolution, I come out looking liberal. I can logically and rationally defend my political positions and can do so consistently. That's why I'm a liberal, and anyone can try and criticize me for it all they want, but they still haven't beaten me in a debate. I'm a liberal, because intellectual conservatism is dead.
<troll>Oh, and I also think that Ayn Rand was an idiot and libertarians are, for the most part, the most politically naive group I've ever run across. They're much more fun when they're drunk and trying to defend their ideology, cause when they're sober, it's just sad</troll>
It's all style over substance
However you are skipping a significat amount of time between the launch and the attacks of "wagging the dog". After the initial attack the vast majority of right wings were with him and felt it was about time, it was only after time when it became ovious that the only time he was going to attack were when clinton wanted them to be the headlines not the investigation into him. The most disagreement about the initial attacks were that they were against insignificant locations that were of minor or no value to the enemy.
The attack was on August 20th, 1998. On August 21, David Corn wrote an article on Salon noting the press corps asking of this question. Christopher Hitchens, by that time a rabid Clinton-hater, made the accusation shortly after. It was also brought up by GOP Senators Specter and Coats. The GOP just didn't want anything to take attention away from their ludicrous witch-hunt. See "Sacred Age of Terror" by Benjamin and Simon for a complete account.
The rest is filled with so many leftist lies it is not worth discussing.
Then you should have no problem refuting my assertions. It's odd that while I cite specific references, people and dates, you simply chock it up to "leftist lies". Did Rumsfeld use the full force of the US in Tora Bora or N. Alliance irregulars? Didn't the Joint Cheifs claim that half a million troops would be needed for peacekeeping in Bosnia or for any other ground offensive? How many resources did Louis Freeh direct at Whitewater related investigations vs. domestic searches for terrorism?
Thank you for playing, but try again.