I have lived there.
Sure, their traditions are leftist. In fact, i would like them much better if they actually lived up to their traditions. But the current Labour government under Blair is far from left in the vast majority of its policies.
[point by point rebuttal deleted]
I’ll try to tamp down the invective. It’s never helped me anyway.
Wow. That thread got hijacked faster than…well…some aircraft I’ve heard mentioned in the news.
I read the whole thing. Things were fine until post 10, and it became another friggin’ pitting of Diogenes, and by extension those who would agree with him (myself included), when in fact, the pitting in the OP was against conservative radio. Maybe later I’ll deconstruct the thing and figure out what sleight of hand turned it into a pitting of the left. Or maybe I just don’t give a shit.
Christ. Grow up, people.
Bless you, sir. If for no other reason than because you spared me the decimation of a point-by-point rebuttal.
And by the way, I’m giddy with anticipation of future Dio posts.
“Beckinsale has dropped the burka!”
Yeah, he’s anti-stupid people, which is sorta the whole point of this message board.
Don’t go blaming Dio just because there’s been an upswell in stupidity from the political right in the last decade or so. 
I agree with this 100%. If ever a thread needed a second take, this would be it.
Amen!!!
Only, rather than alienate themselves from each other, it seems as if each side would really like to ANNIHILATE the other side.
PEOPLE. (of both sides for crying out loud).
The “other” side watches the same news and reads the same papers you do. They take those reports and have a different OPINION of what they mean, and what is important.
The fact that it is not the same as YOUR beliefs doesn’t mean they are evil, stupid, America-hating, or anything else.
It’s a difference of opinion. Period. Good GOD, can we stop with the murderous hatred already?
[
Amen!!!
Only, rather than alienate themselves from each other, it seems as if each side would really like to ANNIHILATE the other side.
PEOPLE. (of both sides for crying out loud).
The “other” side watches the same news and reads the same papers you do. They take those reports and have a different OPINION of what they mean, and what is important.
The fact that it is not the same as YOUR beliefs doesn’t mean they are evil, stupid, America-hating, or anything else.
It’s a difference of opinion. Period. Good GOD, can we stop with the murderous hatred already?
damnit
I refreshed after it froze, I DID. grrrrrr
and
Well, Hamlet didn’t exactly get the whole thing off to a great start by taking an unnecessary potshot at Diogenes in the OP.
Instead of writing
why not just leave out the words “like Dio”? The point would have been made perfectly well, and none of this would have happened.
I have a plethora of responses to this thread, some of which are diametrically opposed to each other. Therefore, I will seperate them by asterisks:
Oh stop your whining Hamlet. You do to want to destroy the world.
If you don’t want to destroy the world, than how do you explain that doomsday device in your back pocket? huh?
Denial ain’t a river. You’re never going to get any help or change until you admit you have a problem. Once you admit that you want to destroy the world, you can begin to address your problem. But if you just want to sit there and protest that you don’t you’re never going to get anywhere. We all know you want to destroy the world. You’re not fooling anybody, and you’re just embarasshing your self. Just admit the problem. Lots of people want to destroy the world. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You are among friends. So, instead of denying it, why don’t you be honest with us? More importantly, why don’t you be honest with yourself.
Seriously though, why the hyperbole? They really didn’t say you wanted to destroy the world, did they? More likely what they said was that you and yours were in favor of a lot of poor ideas that would inevitably lead to the world being screwed up.
Assuming for the nonce that you are a liberal, than that’s pretty much the way I feel about most of the things associated with liberals. They are bad ideas that will screw things up. Probably that’s what they said, and like it or not, it’s probably fair because liberals feel that conservatives want to do things which will inevitably lead to disaster. That’s why we are not all conservatives or liberals. We disagree.
Assuming the prior one is wrong and the show did specifically say that liberals are out to destroy the world… they may have a point. I do not speak about all liberals, but I have wondered about this myself. For the last five years it seems to me that quite a few liberals have been pretty vocal about how everything the Republicans/conservatives are doing is such a terrible idea and will lead to disaster that they have trapped themselves rhetorically. They have put themselves in the position that they were counting on the economy falling apart, and our foreign situation self-destructing in order to regain power. People that have left themselves no choice but to count on the failure of their adversary’s as their primary strategy to power have made the mistake of forgetting that we are all in the same boat, and our failure is also theirs. In such cases those people are out to destroy the world and fuck things up so they can blame it on the party in power. Their only strategy is to hope things fall apart, predict they will, and sometimes to help them along, or talk as if they already have. In my opinion this has become an uncomfortably large percentage of liberals.
Bollocks. You are talking about Daily Mail Land, which is a whole different, scary and fictious place.
I do. You’re talking crap. Again.
And the word you’re searching for is capitalist, not capilatlist.
You’re talking out of your arse Ryan. New Labour’s policies bear no resemblance to the traditional values of old Labour. This change in leaning can be traced back to around the time of John Smith’s death when Labour realised that their best chances of winning lay in beating the Tories at their own game.
I think this thread is somewhat indicative of the problem we’re facing today. Both sides have stepped away from the table, yet there’s more important work to do than ever.
Both sides are too obsessed with gaining political advantage to put that advantage to use in any meaningful way.
What we need to do is come back to the table with the understanding that each side represents roughly half the people, put the things that need to be done on the table and reach agreements that allow things to move forward.
You want to partially privatize Social Security? O.K., then Medicare needs to be strengthened. You want abortion to remain legal? O.K., let kids pray in school if they want to. Stuff like that. Big ideas, brave choices. We currently have no one with the stones or the flexibility to do this.
Kids can pray in school. They have ALWAYS been able to pray in school. The problem has been in endorsing corporate prayer or involving schools in religious programs. It’s this lack of knowledge about First Amendment law that poisons the debate.
Opps, I knew that people could voluntarily pray in school. I was just trying to provide examples of issues both sides seem to hold dear, and I was factually inaccurate. I reckon that’s at least one of the reasons I’m not politician.
So what part of not letting gays marry is integral to that vision?
Actually, a penchant for factual inaccuracy would probably qualify you eminently for the job.
No. I want to RULE the world. What good is being Grand Pooh Bah of the world if it is destroyed before I can develop my Death Star v. 2.2.
It’s only a prototype.
Hi, I’m Hamlet. And I’m a Evil Genius. Hi Hamlet!
Actually the term “destroy” came from a part of the “discussion” which included the accusation that allowing homosexuals to marry would, indeed, “destroy the family”. And, in discussing the new Ten Commandments judge, they stated that those who oppose allowing judges to adorn themselves in the Ten Commandments while on the bench were trying to “wipe out” Christianity. Now, I’ve always been unable to understand how allowing homosexuals the same civil rights as most everyone else in any way harms “the family”. Or how wanting separation of church and state makes me wish to get rid of Christianity. Rather than discuss these issues, the talk radio shows would rather demonize those who disagree and paint them as bent on the destruction of all that they hold dear. We saw it with the rhetoric of “anti-patriotism” for not supporting the war in Iraq and numerous other issues. I’m sick of it.
We can disagree. We can think that the other side’s platform is wrong and may “screw things up”, but protraying liberals (and conservatives) as actually wishing to destroy the other side is so incredibly contraproductive to enlightened debate that … well, we end up where we are now, with a strongly divided nation.
In addition, there are certainly decisions that will have much more “destructive” effect than others. For example, oh, let’s say invading another country. The effect of such a decision is much more negative than that of allowing two people of the same gender to marry. There are some parts of the “liberal ideology” (if that exists), that could lead to destruction, but I have a real hard time understanding how accepting homosexuality and not establishing a religion are those issues.
I would disagree as to the percentage, but you definitely have a point that there are liberals who believe the country is heading for complete and utter ruin. But stating that liberals actually WANT thinks to go badly, is just plain wrong in a vast majority of cases. No “liberals” I know want the invasion of Iraq to go poorly, they never did, despite the rhetoric of the right. No “liberals” I know want the economy to collapse, hell, I need my retirement account to flourish. No “liberals” I know want Social Security to tank, want the future generations to be laden with debt, or want the marginalization of gays. They may think it will happen. They may think it is already happening. But ascribing a negative intent to every desire of a “liberal” is a bold faced lie that is meant only to further divide our country.
And, as an aside:
I was attempting to take a larger issue in the country and apply it to this message board, and to point out that both sides do this. Feel free to insert another posters name who is omnipresent and demonizes the “opposition”, including neocons, but apparently not conservatives, the Republican party, but oddly enough not Republicans, and people who voted for Bush, but not … ummmm conservatives or Republicans.