Individual liberals are scorning Schlafly. Individual conservatives scorned Kennedy. Hence neither liberalism or conservatism is any guarantee than an individual will withhold scorn.
I’m unclear on what Bricker’s original point was, if any.
Individuals liberals praised Kennedy. Individual conservatives praised Kennedy.
Individual conservatives praised Schlafly. Where are the individual liberals who praised Schlafly?
The Kennedy thread did have a small number of conservatives who posted hateful commentary. But it also had prominent board conservatives who spoke well of Kennedy. I’m arguing that the latter analogous position can’t be found here in this thread.
Well, to be fair I didn’t say only a drunk could have had such an accident. And the question of whether Kennedy was drunk or not is a matter of speculation, I’ll grant, since the authorities weren’t notified until 9 hours after the accident. However it’s hard to imagine he had been at a party with 12 married men and 12 single girls and managed to leave free from the influence of alcohol.
And I disagree that his continued skirt-chasing throughout his career are outside the subject of the thread. What we’ve been discussing currently is whether someone’s history and behavior qualifies them to be called assholes. In that regard Kennedy’s behavior with women contributes in my opinion to an overall history of assholishness despite his unquestionable service in the Senate. Had he been a powerful Republican and word gotten out about his behavior I have no doubt he’d have been excoriated as a misogynist and sexual predator. But he was given a pass in the same way as Bill Clinton. Apparently it pays to be a Democrat if you’re going to engage in lifelong horndogism while holding down a powerful position in the government.
But I digress. To get back to Chappaquiddick, here are a few entries from the Wiki article on the incident that give the chronology of events:
And yet…
His behavior that night and the next morning seemed overwhelmingly callous, self-centered and self-concerned, and demonstrated very little regard for Mary Jo Kopechne or her fate. We, like the authorities and everyone else who knew the players, are left to speculate as to what really happened as due to his behavior following the incident nothing could be proven.
It’s true that his service to the country is admirable, I’ll admit. But how much of it was driven either by guilt over what happened to Mary Jo Kopechne and a desire to get himself straight with his family, social set and the country at large? In my opinion his behavior in regard to Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, combined with his personal proclivity to chase women behind the scenes while putting up a respectable front as the “Lion of the Senate” all qualify him for the “asshole” appellation. And yet few of the board’s conservative posters stooped to calling him sick and twisted and/or offered the hope that he suffered from his disease and was burning in hell for all eternity, such as Phyllis Schlafly has come in for merely as a result of her having taken a right wing stance on a constitutional amendment.
No, that wasn’t your original point.
Assuming this is your new point, what’s the point of your point?
Yes, it was.
That the board’s liberals are more uniformly comfortable with hateful vitriol directed at dead political opponents than the board’s conservatives are.
What “position I liked”? You asked and I was like, “well, I think Ted Kennedy”. Christ, that was seven years ago – I don’t keep track of that shit. (I think there WAS one dude who started multiple threads about Kopechne and ended up banned for it)
You want to know the position I like? My position is that the whole “liberals/conservatives ALWAYS do such and such” is a bunch of bullshit.
Ha! Then you admit it was about liberal hypocrisy after all.
Checkmate.
All of this is true. What is not true is what you said in the post I rejected: “. . . Now you defining someone as an asshole for no reason other than they were on the opposite side from you politically . . .”
That is not the same as calling someone an asshole for being an arrant liar. You made a mistake in accusing me of the wrong thing.
I’ll buy that. That’s a much better answer than I would have given. Thank you!
Please inform us of something she said or did that was especially praiseworthy. I mean, something of such value that it eclipses her assholery.
Hardly. The reason you condemned her for ‘lying’ about the ERA is because she was on the other side from you politically on the issue. You had (and have) no proof she lied, you just don’t like what she said because she was on the other side of the issue politically. So you decided, based solely on your opposition to what she said, that she was lying and therefore an asshole. There is simply no reason for you to presume that she was lying other than your disdain for her politics on the issue. Therefore you have defined her as a liar and asshole for no substantive reason other than you didn’t agree with her politically.
I could buy that Schlafly sincerely believed that women should have a lower status.
That would make her dumb, but not deceptive.
Schlafly felt, like many men and women of the era did, that women held a privileged status and she didn’t want to see it eroded.
There were plenty of women then who were happy to let the man do all the work, deal with bosses and customers and be saddled with the responsibility of providing for the whole family while they stayed at home, watched soap operas and visited with their neighborhood’s other stay-at-home housewives. Plus women invariably got the house and the car and most of the money in a divorce, not to mention the kids…even if the reason for the divorce was hers. Everywhere they went men held doors for them and changed tires for them and stood when they entered a room and pulled out chairs for them in restaurants. “Ladies first” was the order of the day. And they didn’t have to worry about getting drafted and sent off to war like the men did.
There’s been a lot of nonsense about that time promulgated by the left as to how women couldn’t have their own checking accounts and how women had to slave their days away doing housework while all the men breezed through their days at work, taking three-hour, three-Martini lunches and having everything in life configured to suit them.
It’s all nonsense of course but that’s how lefties always go about creating social change. It’s hard to get them burning their bras without first making villains of the men.
This isn’t to say the advances in women’s rights and job opportunities aren’t better now because they most definitely are. There are many women in my family and among my friends who have really good jobs they wouldn’t have been able to get in Schlafly’s era and I’m very happy about that. Generally I don’t begrudge most of the aims of liberals in these types of social change. What I object to is the dishonesty and the pitting of one side against the other in order to bring them about.
And how about SMBD liberals?
You mean “Why do SDMB liberals answer a question with a question?”. Well, why shouldn’t an SDMB liberal answer a question with a question?
We encompass all types.
Paint with a broad brush, doncha?
I’m not surprised you feel this way - most conservatives probably believe conservatives are nice and better people, and most liberal probably believe liberals are nicer and better people.
From my time in the Navy and after, I find that conservatives are no more open or well mannered than liberals, or vice versa. And I find conservatives just as likely to believe the other side is evil as conservatives.
When have you heard of liberals trying to get satanic displays removed from public property next to Christian displays? Or removing books from the library for talking about sex or homosexuality? Or trying to remove talk of slavery from textbooks?
My point is that both sides have anti free speech extremists.
Or for non free speech related examples, when did a liberal ever try and block a school doorway to prevent black children from integrating? When did a liberal sheriff ever sick dogs and open fire hoses on a crowd of peaceful black protesters?
Most conservatives hopefully think these are very wrong, and most liberals probably think your examples are wrong as well.
Yes, it’s terrible when people grossly misrepresent their opponents’ views and actions just to promote their own personal agendas. I hate it when people do that.
The Fifties were such a wonderful time, before the Women’s Libbers came in, weren’t they? 
Whose memories are you drawing on for this? TV Land?
The checking account stuff is true. The rest is of a piece with your own fond, er, assessment right above.
If you have a better idea, you need to state it. At the time it would help. But it’s more fun this way, isn’t it?