With respect, Shodan, I think you’re missing the point in regard to gay marriage, admittedly a touchy subject. The Dems do not wish to impose gay marriage on anyone; you, for example, will not be forced to pair up with a hot, muscled leather daddy (more’s the pity). What we wish is to allow people to be able to choose to marry or not, and not be barred from sharing the civil benefits of legal union.
The Pubs misled, OK, flat-out lied, to churchgoers by whipping up fears that the government would make churches extend their sacramental marriage ceremonies to people they consider sinners. Nothing could be further from the truth. Marriage is a civil institution; atheists can get married, as can Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists, none of whose marriages were solemnized in a Christian church. I think that pursuing gay marriage in an election year was stupid and I said as much in several posts over the summer, but that does not mean that the principle of personal freedom is unsound.
While I do want the Dems to stop demonizing the Pubs, we must not forget that there is a serious difference in the way you and we view the rights of the individual. Today’s Daily Kos puts it very well:
The Pubs are the party of social control and imposition of rigid “values” (sexual prohibitions only–all other sins, like greed and gluttony, are A-OK) on society. Your party has allied itself with people who wish to suppress the teaching of science in schools and substitute Mesopotamian creation myths in its place. We, in contrast, are the true party of knowledge, freedom, and individual liberty.
I’m not talking about “okay.” It’s perfectly OK to insult Bush voters by calling them stupid. I’m suggetsing it may not be wise political strategy. It’s perfectly OK to insult liberals, and a wiser political strategy because they are perceived as farther from the political center.
I don’t think comparing Republicans and liberals is quite right. One is a political party, the other is a school of thought. Would you draw similar comparisons between Democrats and conservatives?
I was talking to WeirDave on the phone last night,m and he brough up an interesting point–the most aggravating aspect of the extreme left is the assumption thatr being liberal makes one inherently more intelligent and insightful than others and thus any position they take is the intelligent and insightful one. This, to me, is no different than the extreme Christian right saying that their postiion are from God and thus are beyond debate or even questioning.
Smarmy self-righteousness is annoying, stupid, and counter-productive; as Oliver Cromwell, himself no slouch in the blending God with politics department, put it, “I bessech thee in the bowels of Christ to consider whether you may be wrong.”
I was talking to WeirdDave on the phone last night, and he brought up an interesting point–the most aggravating aspect of the extreme left is the assumption that being liberal makes one inherently more intelligent and insightful than others and thus any position they take is the intelligent and insightful one. This, to me, is no different than the extreme Christian right saying that their political policies are from God and thus are beyond debate or even questioning.
Smarmy self-righteousness is annoying, stupid, and counter-productive; as Oliver Cromwell, himself no slouch in the blending God with politics department, put it, “I beseech thee in the bowels of Christ to consider whether you may be wrong.”
Well, I was talking about “okay” because it’s the moral issue that I’m more interested in right now. I too am sick of being insulted. I’m sick of being insulted by the Ann Coulters, the Michael Savages, the Rush Limbaughs, and the Sean Hannities, who apparently have given to themselves the moral authority to call me “evil”. I’m sick of people on the right bitching about a lack of civility in political discourse but not condemning the right’s own demagogues because insulting liberals is a “wise political strategy”. I’m sick of people like manhattan loading their supposedly “well-meaning advice” with claims that I’m anti-American just because I read Daily Kos. I’m sick of the wingnut wing of the Republican party weeping crocodile tears that the left is just so mean and lacking moral values, when those people wouldn’t recognize the Sermon on the Mount if Jesus himself came and shouted it in their faces.
I guess that places me “farther from the political center” too.
I sympathize with your discomfort – think how I feel sometimes on this very board?
To answer your question, I don’t think it’s “OK” no matter which side indulges in it. Ann Coulter’s book “Treason,” takes perfectly defensible disputes over liberal policies and transforms them into an argument that liberals hate America. That’s clearly an outrageous conclusion.
But since the right is targetting the left and not the middle, they aren’t losing nearly as many votes as the left is targetting the center. Thus the distinction between “OK” and “sound strategy.”
The girl can take it, bless her heart. And take note: the people who attack her just attack her, generally because they can’t refute the facts she presents.
I expect there will be some lessening in that, since our tighty righty brethren have a new tack to take, when they cannot refute an argument or counter some factual presentation, they start jumping up and down and yelling “Mandate!”.
Tell you what – give me a free subscription to that commercial porn site in your profile and I’ll consider it.
But while I’m off enjoying self-love, consider that what I should be doing is getting flown on a private jet down to the Greenbriar to meet with Democratic poo-bahs to tell them how to win. That popular-vote swing from a narrow Gore plurality to a Bush majority? It wasn’t the fundies. It was me. I’m the guy you lost. I voted for President Clinton the second time around and I voted for Al Gore (back before he turned into a sociopath – how glad are we that he wasn’t in charge after 9-11 if a mere election sent him as bat-shit insane as it obviously did?). I’m an atheist who thinks that gays should marry, that human rights should be part of our trade policy and that statues of Justice should be topless at press conferences. How did I get from someone who voted for Al Gore to someone who will never, ever, ever vote for anyone who so much as accepts his endorsement? That’s the question facing the Democrats. Don’t want the answer? That’s your call.
Then stop. fucking. reading. him. Sheesh, you guys are dumb sometimes. Here’s another group that’s fallen firmly into the anti-American camp and needs to be put right. The people at sorryeverybody.com. Wanna win a national election ever again? Hunt down all of the people on that site and tell them to get right. Tell them that loyal Americans take care of our differences amongst ourselves. Tell them we do not apologize to other countries for our democratic decisions. Then, just to emphasize the point, bitch-slap them. Hard. Exception: Some of the people at that site are saying things like “please don’t bomb (location).” Just tell them that loyal Americans do not prostrate before terrorists and get them a plane ticket to a country that can stomach them if there is such a place.
When Stoid talks politics, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen her present anything factual. Or if she has, it’s just been too hard to find amongst the blood and tears.
Those who rely on blood and tears rather than logic in their arguments find her diatribes well-reasoned, as their own reasoning abilities are typically on par with hers.
T’aint 15 Senate seats you need to worry about, punkin, it’s 10 state referenda. And not by slim margins, either.
You still don’t get it. If Washington types say (IMO, wisely) “leave it up to the states”, y’all are going to get screwed blue, and not by your domestic partner, either.
I don’t agree with Manhattan on much, but here I can only say “amen.”
FUCK all those lefty whingers who are ass-kissing to the world about how awful America is! Yeah, Bush and the Pubs suck, but this is our country and we’ll settle our problems our way.
And you pussies who want to run off to Canda? Go, there’s the door, see ya! If you are such a lily-livered wuss that the mere loss of an election is enough to make you throw up your hands in despair, then we can do without you. Taking back America is going to take hard work and guts, and if you don’t have the stomach for the fight, then your departure will be an asset to those of us who love our nation enough to fight for it.
Got any gay friends, Shodan? I haven’t many, between 2 and 10, depending on how you cut the line between friend and acquaintance. One of them is a 'Nam vet who was shot before he realized he was a corrupt creep with no standing to regard himself as a worthy American. I don’t know if his wheelchair is a homo. Never asked.
How do you tell them that you support an Admin that regards them as being unworthy of the same considerations afforded straight citizens? Do you seize them by the lapels and scream “Ha! Screw you! Mandate! Mandate!” Or do you say “Look, its nothing personal. I don’t despise you, but I support and defend people who do despise you. Say, do these slacks go with this shirt?”
As a liberal, I can’t accept this advice to turn the democratic party into a clone of the republican party, even if it wins us votes. My goal is to convince the country to become more leftist, to agree with my position. I’m not a liberal because it’s currently popular, I’m a liberal because I think it’s the right political philosophy.
No matter how far to the right Democrats go, Republicans will be able to go even further. I for one won’t play that game. It’s a no win (for us) situation.
By the way, virtually the only people yammering about a “mandate” are those Dems who profess outrage over the possibility that Bush will not share power with them based on the fact that he won a close election.
Criminy, it’s 2000 all over again. Get used to the idea that GWB couldn’t care less about reconciliation or your conception of a “mandate”. He’s going to try to ram his policies through no matter how loudly you whine. Prepare for battle where it counts, and stop making yourselves look ridiculous by griping “But he doesn’t have a mandate”.
Coming to a decaying theater near you, “The Passion of the Stoid”. Free conspiracy theories to the first 10 ticketholders who show up in sackcloth and ashes, no matter how long it takes to reach that number.
*special guest appearance by Pee Wee Herman in the role of John Ashcroft.
I don’t think anyone here is argung that the Dems become clones of the Pubs; what I’m saying is that we keep the ideals, but stop acting like pussies and letting the Pubs claim (falsely) that they are the party that respects morals and American values.
