This is all starting to sound like that old playground truism: “he can dish it out, but can’t take it.”
I must have missed where he said he’d take ownership of his part of the snark. I am happy to apologize if I am incorrect. I don’t agree with you re the stridency. I see examples of extreme positions on both right and left because (as Cisco said), that is what plays in the press and what we are all used to. All news and all important issues do not contain controversy, nor are they all adversarial, but we are trained to think that way from years of watching the news and other media.
It was not that long ago (and for all know, it still happens today) when any criticism of Bush et al brought the automatic response from any conservative handy that “Clinton got a blow job.” The lovely meme, “why do you hate America?” also got play here and on the net, as well as in the MSM. When faced with such facile equivocations and utter ridiculousness, the natural reaction is one of exasperation followed by anger. We Chardonnay sipping, arugula eating, East coast elitists can and do get angry. We’ll figure out the satire later, but for now, we’re mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. Is there a reason, ANY reason, why we should afford you all more decency and respect now than you have ever shown for us, ever?
And xenophon41 also makes an important point. The right wing’s positions have become so absurd and so brutal that they simply don’t deserve respect. Frankly, if what the Right has been doing isn’t evil and incompetent, then what is ?
Over the years, the country has gone so far to the right that you really can’t be right wing relative to the majority of America without at least verging on the crazy & evil end of the political spectrum.
By being right. By pointing out that Iraq would be a disaster, that Bush was incompetent and not to be trusted, by opposing torture, and on and on.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. IOW, I can (and do) say the same about conservatives, plenty of whom drink Chardonnay, eat arugula and live on the east coast…
Respect is indeed earned. IMO, it is not earned by taking a political position and making it into a dirty word (as Bush Sr et al did re the word liberal). It is not done by spouting words of scripture while doing that which is against all the proclaimed savior’s teachings. It is not done by eviscerating the character of a war vet or by spreading smears regarding a fellow party candidate’s child. Oh, but Bush Jr didn’t do that, you cry–some other people did it. Yes, in his cause and with full knowledge of how despicable it was. Respect is earned. Please show me where the GOP has the moral high ground in any of this in the last oh, 12 years. Yes, both parties are guilty of such political machinations, but the GOP has sunk lower and lower in its bid to get power and hold onto it.
Respect is earned here as well. I think I’ll just end it there.
An as far as the moral aspect goes, opposing torture and the mass slaughter of innocents is morally superior to supporting them. You are on the side of the monsters; deal with it.
I’m going to respond to the issues pertinent to the thread, and leave off the debate about the current administration. There are other threads for that.
It could be possible that conservatives do think they’ve gotten the best of the argument, but the other side doesn’t agree. That’s what happens when neither side is really listening at all, but simply ‘bebating’ in terms of trying to probe for weakness and fire salvos at the other side. No one’s arguments ‘win’. It’s all just bluster and sniping.
Here’s a good example - the left portrays Katrina as a huge failure of the Bush Administration. The right portrays it as a failure of the state government and the mayor of New Orleans. Both sides think they have the correct set of ‘facts’. Neither side is willing to give ground. Why? Because the Katrina disaster is too valuable of a political weapon for either side to let go of.
The truth of the matter is that Katrina exposed a host of problems that are not all partisan, or even mostly partisan. Neglect of the levees, poor evacuation planning, poor coordination between the feds and the state government at the lower administration levels, some questions over whether the division of responsibilities between FEMA and the states are the correct ones, etc. You can also find plenty of partisan blame - the governor of Louisiana screwed up big time, Mayor Nagin screwed up big time, “Heckuva Job Brownie” screwed up big time.
But once again, adopting the nuanced stance which is that disaster planning is difficult and the people in charge of it are elected officials without real traning in the area and that too much of it is controlled and dictated by political needs instead of engineering and solid management principles would strip either side of the ability to play the ‘gotcha!’ game. So we ignore the real facts, and stand on our talking points. Or as Stephen Colbert likes to call it, “truthiness”.
And Nagin and the governor, both Democrats, failed to call for a timely evacuation, failed to employ the buses they had available for the purpose, and failed to properly stock their disaster gathering point with supplies. The Louisiana state government AND the feds failed to protect the levees. Lots of blame to go around.
You did know that the current disaster plan calls on the the states and municipalities to be responsible for the ordered evaculation of the population, and FEMA with the responsibility for bringing in federal waypoints with supples and coordinating the federal disaster response and rescue operations, right? And that those stations were actually set up and ready, but the population couldn’t get to them because they weren’t properly evacuated from the disaster area?
The other thing that has to be said is that this was a disaster of epic proportions that strained the system in many ways. There weren’t enough resources to rescue everyone in New Orleans in part because there were many, many other areas that didn’t make the news as much which were also hit hard and which were calling for those same resources. If anything, maybe it just showed that some disasters are so big that you simply can’t control all of it. But since that’s a non-partisan answer, no one likes it.
There’s some truth to that, but there’s also the fact that Bush took power just as the dot-com boom melted down, and globalization is presenting challenges that again aren’t really partisan. And the fact is, he presided over 8 years without a recession and with pretty god economic growth. House prices are still higher than they were four years ago. While incomes are flat, benefits have risen.
Also, I’m not sure flat incomes are a partisan issue. A good part of the problem has been illegal immigration, which puts a downward pressure on wages at the low end, and the elimination of some very high-wage manufacturing jobs. You could equally make the case that those jobs went away because of democrat policies and excessive union power which made corporations less competitive. Conservatives would also make the case that high business taxes make it harder to compete and push jobs overseas.
There’s plenty if you’re willing to listen. And plenty of things Republicans have done too. You don’t have a monopoly on the truth.
This is a highly debatable point, even for people like me who agree that global climate change is partly manmade. There’s nothing in the IPCC report that justifies such a sweeping claim. But again, if you’re going to stand by that as an obvious fact that can not be debated, you stack the playing field by then being able to show anything other than a total crash program to avoid it is yet another sign of Republican foolishness.
And that seems to be the response of just about every other government on the planet, too. This is an issue that really makes my point - the true debate is very complex, having to do with poorly understood science, risk/reward ratios, proper discount rates for future warming damage, opportunity costs in choosing where to spend your money, and the realities of trying to control a world market in a fungible commodity. But we can’t have that debate, so each side picks the kind of truthiness that supports its dogmatic stance, the common ground gets erased, and it becomes yet another way to continue the partisan sniping.
That’s a good example. There are sometimes common goals that bring both sides together.
I tried very carefully to not claim that this was a ‘righties vs lefties’ argument. I was pointing out the forces that cause both sides of the debate to shut down. ‘Righties’ are every bit as guilty of it. I even admitted my own complicity, when I said that I was capable of giving all kinds of ground in a debate to my wife, because we trust each other to be honest and reasonable and consider each other’s points of view, than I can or will here, where I know it will only be used against me and the other side will not reciprocate. That happens on both sides.
A few of these boards on the right attempted to have open discussion forums, but they rapidly got spammed by Democrats shouting at them. Maybe it’s just because Democrats are more numerous on the web, or because they’re angrier, or simply because the Republicans are the ones who have been in power, and therefore are on the defensive.
I think you’re on track of a good point here. I think the left has been a little more strident and angry than the right simply because the right has been in power, and therefore on the defensive. If Obama is elected, the left will be forced into the mode of having to defend his mistakes (and all presidents make mistakes), and the right will become more energized.
And it’s always easier to claim the mantle of truth when its’ theoretical. It’s easier to pick at the party in power and claim your ideas are obviously better when there’s no way to test it. It’s much harder to be the one constantly defending policies which, in the real world, are never so perfect that the opposition can’t find plenty of legitimate gripes against them. So if Obama is elected, maybe the positions will reverse. We’ll see.
Who is this “we,” white man? Two wrongs don’t make a right? Don’t stoop to their level and prove yourself to be no better?
I’m Dem, and not pleased with my fellow Dems and how they are acting. I’ll vote for the big O because I want to, not because Dems like to start a jillion threads bashing McCain and mostly just patting each other on the back and saying “good one! Heh, heh, did you watch Stewart and Colbert last night? They rocked! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!”
I read what you quoted. It doesn’t tell me who the fuck you are talking about. Do you even have any idea?
I see you’ve switched to “leftists”. Who the fuck are leftists?
If you mean, like blue states, I would point out that blue states, relative to red states, are net contributors to federal revenues, while red states are net consumers. Why don’t you fucking freeloaders quit sucking the federal teat?