How, exactly, have you been misrepresented, poor baby?
No tongue-kissing. I draw the line at tongue-kissing.
Max:
That’s not what I mean. Basically the Republicans now control everything. Beleive it or not, I am not particularly happy about that.
How? How do I respectfully engage in dialogue with people who can swallow bullshit like “catastrophic success” with a straight face? How do I respectfully engage in dialogue with people who insist on beleiving things that are demonstrably not true? Not even differences of opinion, or matters of taste. Facts. Simple facts.
When was the last time you had sex with a conservative?
The healing needs to begin. Their needs to be a coming together. A great nationwide bipartisan orgy to promote sexual healing.
She was only a banker’s daughter, but there was a substantial [penalty for early withdrawal…
Bricker is of course, right that he was right, luckily for his bank account. This thread could probably have waited a few days until emotions have cooled a bit. I tend to compare his rightness though to my being right when I call heads on a coin flip.
That said, Rick, you got any predictions for 2008? 
Take your semantic games and play them with your parrot. If you’re a liberal, I’m the fucking Queen of Sheba.
Fortunately, there is a fairly consistent definition of asshole, and your picture is next to it in the dictionary.
Like it or not, Bricker has valid points. In 1999 I was on the fence between Gore and Bush. Didn’t particularly like either of them. And then I saw Barbra Streisand on Rosie O’Donnell where she basically said that people who supported Bush were idiots. I still get angry when I think of her smirky attitude. And you know what? It backfired, because her exclusive, elitist attitude made me want to vote FOR Bush. Attacking people because you don’t agree with their platform is fair game. Calling half of the country “stupid” or “idiots” because they don’t happen to march to the beat of your drummer, is not.
Then we come to this election and nobody wants to talk about John Kerry’s platform. All they want to talk about is what a loser George W. Bush is. Michael Moore contributes his “little film” and people treat it as if it’s the freaking gospel instead of some piece of progaganda created by an openly biasedl man with a clear agenda. People started multiple threads barking about every single move that Bush made with snarky little titles like, “Well, Bush lied again (surprise, surprise)!” And you know what? It turned as many people OFF to the cause as turned people on. Call it the Limbaugh Factor. You can only hear the same incessant, irrationally biased whining for so long before you tune it out altogether. You see a few posters’ names attached to a thread and you don’t even open it because they have lost any semblance of credibility.
You think I’m an idiot or evil just because I’m a Republican? And you want me to support YOUR cause? Honey attracts more flies than vinegar, folks. And a lot of you blew any chance of getting support with your negativity.
So, how about spelling out who you are, what motivates you, what you believe, and most especially, what the hell you’re trying to do? This non-affiliated voter sure can’t figure it out.
Reconciliation isn’t going to happen so long as it is apparent that the “winners” don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but themselves. And right now, that seems to be very much the case socially, economically, and internationally.
Scylla, the Republicans are no more a united force than the Democrats. Who you are, what motivates you, what you believe, and what you are trying to do changes with just about everybody. Kinda like how the Democrats are not totally united either. Some people voted for Bush for security, some voted for Bush because they were scared, some voted for Bush because they are complete and utter idiots, some voted for Bush because they love having their taxes cut, some voted for Bush because they feel he is the best person to fight the war on terror, some voted for Bush because they want a leader regardless of where he is leading them, some voted for Bush because they believe in spreading democracy throughout the world by any means necessary, some voted for Bush because they want a theocracy, and some voted for Bush because they had eggs for breakfast. To try and paint all those who voted for Bush as having a single purpose, a single motivation, a single idealogly is just as ludicrious as painting them all as blithering idiots.
How about the coterie of people who attack half of the country for being godless, amoral, terrorist loving pussies?
I just don’t GET it. How the fuck do the Republicans in this country actually get off saying that the liberals have a monopoly on mindlessly attacking the other half of the country? The Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys and Ann Coulters have been focusing and debating policy as opposed to meaninglessly attacking the other side? Give me a break. You mentioned Limbaugh in your post. Do you believe the Republican media figures and the hordes of hard-core Bush supporters have been any less demonizing than the Dems?
How many times have I, or any other Republican on this board, started a thread to insult and belittle John Kerry? A handful, maybe. Compare that to the threads devoted to calling President Bush everything from a liar to a fascist. How many times have the Republicans quoted Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity to discredit John Kerry? I can’t think of a single one. Yet Democrats quote Michael Moore and left wing internet sites as if they had an ounce of credibility.
The Republicans on this board, for the most part, do not listen to Rush Limbaugh and we will be the first to say he is an idiot. He does not speak for me. Whatever small nugget of truth he may uncover is lost in his vitriolic delivery. He is so blinded by his partisanship that he cannot see the truth. And the truth is that there are two sides to every story. How many former Democrats tune into Rush Limbaugh and decide to become Republican? Very, very few. Why? Because he demonizes his opponent and canonizes his own party. Hog wash.
This election was going to be close. We all knew it. Why the liberals decided that a blitzkrieg attack on not just President Bush’s policies, but his very character, would be effective in winning friends and influencing people is beyond me. In order to win the Presidency you have to win people to your side. Instead of attempting rational discussions on the elections, they turned into hysterical, whining brats. They opened up thread after thread after thread attacking our president. Even the threads that put up the white flag were turned into gripefests. I really believe that the venom and crappy behavior of the liberals throughout the United States turned off a lot of potential swing voters, including me. You engage me in a civil discussion and I’ll listen. You call me “stupid” and you’ve already lost.
Did you happen to be alive during the Clinton years?
Do tell, o enlightened one.
Raging moderate here, but quite willing to consider. Speak away.
I submit that I do know who “you” (in the collective sense) are, what motivates “you,” what “you” believe, and what “you” are trying to do. The answer to the first is a broad cross-section of the citizens of the country, from the folks next door to the northernmost guy in Alaska. The answer to the rest is “That’s why I oppose your politics.”
Um, yeah. That’s it. I have “a preconception” of close friends of mine, of people I discuss the issues with on a regular basis, of writers and commentators in the media who I read daily or weekly, of people who routinely and articulately express their beliefs on this message board. Goodness knows that I couldn’t possibly know what “you” believe and stand for based on such a complete absence of first-hand knowledge.
Huh?
Yep, just me and 49% of the voting public sitting here and pondering our complete inability to get our message across. Damn, it’s lonely over here.
Jeez, and here I was thinking that roughly two thirds of my closest friends in real life routinely vote Republican. Thinking that, of the elected officials I personally know, the ones that I respect the most are both Republicans. Thank goodness you’re here to shatter my silly illusions.
“You” (note the quotes) may well be my friend. But when “you” send our troops into a meatgrinder on the basis of a series of knowing and negligent falsehoods, when “you” pander and/or promote homophobia and racism, when “you” wipe your ass with fiscal responsibility, then “you” are not my political ally, and I will oppose your actions and your policies at every turn, and I will tell you to go to hell if you can’t handle that criticism without turning into giant crybaby.
Get bent, Scylla. You’re just a pompous a prick with a martyr complex a mile wide and diarrhea of the spleen. And that has everything to do with your personality and nothing to do with your politics.
I was, but I was not a member of the SDMB until the last year of Clinton’s presidency. By the time I joined here, Mr. Clinton had already perjured himself in grand jury testimony, for which I castigated him. At the same time, I acknowledged that the investigation into his actions was politically motivated, and I also acknowledged Mr. Clinton’s successes in foreign policy and the domestic budget.
In short: I never treated Mr Clinton as poorly as you treated Mr. Bush. One specific: I always called him “Mr Clinton.” No equivalent to Shurb, Bushco, Fearless Misleader, and the like.
George Bush is a misleader. This is not a charcterization, this is a fact. He told us he was entirely certain of things that simply are not so. Do you deny that? If you do, can you offer any rational reason why?
And Clinton is an adulterous perjurer. He committed adultery, and then lied about it under oath. (Please don’t dodge this by whining about what the meaning of “is” is – you want me to accept the Bush=misleader, and I will, so do me the courtesy of admitting the truth of this claim.)
The difference is that even though Mr. Clinton is an adulterous perjurer, I didn’t call him that instead of using his name. You chose to call Mr. Bush “Fearless Misleader,” and defend that now my saying he really is a misleader. OK - but see the difference in the approach?
You can learn from this, or stick to the same tactics you’ve been using; they’ve worked well for your side.
I wasn’t particularly talking about the SDMB which is not the place to for a representaive sample of conservative opinion in any era. I was responding more to assertions that liberals in general were mean and unfair to Bush (or should I say "Shrubby the Ass Chimp? :p) as though the eight years of relentless conservative attacks on Bill Clinton had never occurred. And the attacks on Clinton went far beyond a little “Slick Willie” name calling or whining about policy. Tens of millions of tax payer dollars were spent investigating every aspect of the previous 30 years of his and his wife’s life, including their sexual histories. Hundreds of anti-Clinton books were published, Jerry Falwell pimped a video accusing him of drug smuggling and murder. An entire industry of conspiracy theories grew up in the right which accused him of murdering close friends and colleagues with no regard at all for the families of the alleged “victims.”
I could go on and on. Conservatives, as a group, have absolutely no moral high ground when it comes to this stuff. Clinton was impeached for a blow job, but Bush’s White House remains unscratched after a catalogue of crimes and misdemeanors including, but not limited to, blowing the cover of an intelligence agent in the field and handing national security intelligence over to Iran.
Bush has gotten nothing but a free ride from where I’m standing. He was a corrupt, incompent putz on monday and he’s a corrupt, incompetent putz today. Nothing has changed except we now have even less power. Some griping on a message board is the only power we’ve got, but by damn we’re going to use it.
One of the things that defines us is how we behave when things are shitty.
Not that I am unsympathetic. We all are more apt to lash out when things are going poorly for us, when we’re under more stress, and so forth. But there’s a difference between impulsively snapping at someone in real life and taking the time to write something really nasty on a message board, over and over and over again. Writing something nasty on a message board isn’t quite such an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment act. It can be more easily moderated and controlled.
There are plenty of other people who are feeling as screwed up and scared and upset, (including me at times) and they aren’t all lashing out on a message board.
Don’t think I’m slamming you too hard. There are plenty of people who are far worse. But the difference is, they’re jackasses, and I don’t think you are. I say this to you because I think you’re better than that. I think you’re a very sweet person and I don’t like to see this negative side of you.
Oh, preach it sister! This is exactly how it seemed to me too.
I know there are the bigoted “demonizing” conservatives out there, but the thing is, there aren’t that many of them here. I know a few “demonizing” conservatives—I’ve learned a long time ago to blow them off and ignore them. I’m not used to “demonizing” democrats and liberals, and to see so many of them here, behaving at full throttle, was quite the turn-off.
And you know, I do sometimes listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh. I like to sew late at night and I listen to a lot of talk radio while I sew. I listened to his slant on things and I’ve learned to filter out the bullshit and to take everything he says with a huge chunk of salt, but you know what? He described democrats as “smug,” said that they “think that conservatives are all stupid,” and pointed out their contempt and hatred for the “other side,” and you were here, every day, PROVING HIM RIGHT. He made all these sweeping, insulting generalizations, and many of you fit his descriptions eerily well. I don’t think that you should be proud of proving Rush Limbaugh right, but many of you have been doing just that.