I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, specifically, BUT, I think it’s entirely reasonable to have the following beliefs:
(1) Bigotry, torture and intolerance are bad
(2) As citizens of the US, a republic, we are responsible for what our government does
(3) Therefore, when bigotry, torture and intolerance are happening in situations where the US government is involved, it is our urgent responsibility to redress that situation
(4) When non-US sovereign nations are involved in bigotry, torture and intolerance, that is also very bad, but it is not our responsibility to fix it; and in fact I think we only have the right to use force to fix it in extraordinarily extreme stituations
(4a) In non-extreme situations, we should attempt to use various other means, such as social and economic pressure, moral authority of the community of nations, etc., to fix what we see as problems in other societies
(4b) At the same time, we should be aware that just telling people that they’re wrong and we’re right isn’t going to do a damn bit of good, and should address any such situation with politeness and humility.
Yeah, you’re right. I even had it in there at one point but it seems to have fallen victim to the editing process. 
Which, %99 of the time is interpretered by the perceived offenders as condoning by faint damnation, or a deliberate understatement of the speakers “actual” contempt for them, or a sign of weakness and therefore an OK to continue the practise.
If you hold an opinion, why not state it in clear language?
Max, I’m speaking more about attitudes than anything else. I see a much greater willingness–eagerness, even–around here to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses elsewhere around the world and excuse it by saying it’s just another culture. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the anger? If all the supposedly compassionate leftards [sorry, when in Rome and all that] around here were up in arms over the treatment of people in these other countries the way they are about offenses here, we’d here a hell of a lot more about it. But instead, they rant and rail against relatively minor offenses here and then shrug and say, “Well, it’s another culture. They’re used to it. They don’t want it to be any different.” when the subject becomes the abuses that occur in other places around the world. Well, women were ‘used to’ their role prior to the late sixties and that didn’t seem to prevent anyone from taking action to change it. Another culture existed prior to the sixties and that didn’t prevent anyone from taking action to change it. The lefties around here, when it comes to this issue, remind me of people prior to the sixties who saw societal inequities and thought they were no big deal. Blacks/women/minorities were thought to be used to it. It was just the way things were. Now, the same people who so revile that way of thinking back then are exhibiting it themselves, and with much the same excuse. Where are all the compassionate lefties rallying around the world to enforce change in these places? Why aren’t our uberleftie and uberevolved European allies joining with us in demanding changes lest they/we totally isolate them economically and refuse to sell them arms?
In other words, it’s the complacency that I find so hypocritical. If the same people around here who get so worked up over every little thing the U.S. and its people can be alleged to have done got worked up similarly over the much more egregious conditions that people are facing elsewhere, there would be much greater outrage, regardless of whether or not feasable solutions could be found. They would be demanding that some way be found. But no, that’s not the case. Thus they appear much more interested in bashing the U.S. than in truly evangelizing for human rights.
I blame the U.S. university system, myself. 
Suddenly we have an entire generation of people who seem to rabidly believe the U.S. sucks and that’s all there is to it, and that seems to me to be the standpoint of those around here who can’t find enough to criticize the U.S. about while turning a blind eye to much worse abuses elsewhere.
(Just MHO, of course.)
SO unsubstantiated claims and questionable sources only anger the far right when it involves ABC News?
Sort of. Not a very vast one – so far, it includes Insight magazine and their unnamed sources, probably one of their Roving reporters, and it appears to have taken in spoke- and Clothahump.
If only that were the extent of it. There are plenty more to follow, armed with the “if Fox said it, it must be true” mentality.
That’s odd – I could swear I’ve seen some rants about abuse of GBLT people in the Middle East, the odd situations in the Netherlands and France, the Darfur genocide, Ethiopia/Somalia, the Grand Moron of Turkmenistan…
Perhaps you meant to say that US-based posters tend to focus more on violations of human rights and “dirty tricks” within the US? Because that shocks me not at all. Something about first removing the beam from one’s own eye…?
Related GD thread.
Would that make it a half-vast conspriacy?
Many thanks for the straight line, BTW.
Please cite one example where this has happened.
Seriously, are you retarded?
I assume you don’t spend much time reading left-wing sources, but if you did i can assure you that you would find considerable concern for human rights violations all over the globe. And this concern manifests itself whether or not the US is directly involved in those places. Left journals and activists have, for years, been discussing problems in South and Central America, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific.
The left was opposed to people like Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan well before it became fashionable for conservatives to give a shit about either of those places. In additions to the issues cited by Polycarp, many on the left/liberal side oppose things like female genital mutilation in Africa, religious violence in Indonesia, state censorship and violence in China, human rights abuses in Turkey, racism in Britain, sexual exploitation in Russia and the former Soviet bloc, and, yes, even human rights and civil rights abuses in allegedly left-friendly places like Cuba and Venezuela.
You really do live in fantasyland, don’t you? A place where reality has absolutely no importance? That’s the only possible explanation for your wilfull disregard for the truth.
Do you really think that it’s only conservatives (or, for that matter even conservatives) who care about what goes on elsewhere in the world? How can you make such a claim with a straight face, given all the liberal and left opposition to human rights abuses the world over, and left/liberal support for agencies like Oxfam, Amnesty International, the UN, etc., that are trying to do something about these abuses?
Of course, the simplistic binarism of this allegation obscures an important truth: it’s not simply a case of separating US actions, on the one hand, from what goes on in other countries, on the other. The fact is that, in some places at least, the human rights abuses occur precisely because the United States (both public governmental institutions and private corporate ones) turns a blind eye to it, and in some cases even supports it with funds or with encouragement.
Of course, any attempt to connect America to anything going wrong in the world will only ever be met with a roll of the eyes from morons like you, for whom the United States is some anointed saint that can do no wrong.
Well, if that’s the case, he’ll have to put “IMO” in his signature, or develop a keyboard shortcut that will place it in every single post.
Here’s a link to the Amnesty International website. You’ll note that despite fighting U.S. human rights abuses at Guantanamo they’re also working for such disparate causes as the rights of women in Afghanistan, free speech rights in Russia, the plight of refugees in Spain, child soldiers in Congo, and the survivors of the Bhopal disaster in India.
So, yes, “the same people who get so worked up over every little thing the U.S. is alleged to have done” do, in fact, get worked up over similar injustices elsewhere in the world. Your characterization of the “compassionate leftards” is a fantasy that exists only in your own mind.
Could you post some examples of any lefties saying that? This is not what liberals actually say, this is the kind of thing that Rush Limbaugh says that liberals say.
Did you know that liberals and feminists were complaining about the Taliban’s treatment of women long before 9/11? I don’t remember the American political right caring very much.
I must have missed all those America-bashing college classes I keep hearing so much about. Somehow I made it through without hearing any liberal propoganda from my professors.
I don’t suppose you have a cite for liberals saying that America sucks? and just FYI, GWB is not America.
Dio, would you say that there are no leftwing fucktards? Are all fucktards rightwing by default? And are all rightwingers fucktards?
He sure did! Boy, you got that hypocriticial partisan lefty good that time! Yes, that’s exactly what he sorta kinda implied was maybe true!
Bad Dio! Bad! Go lay down by your water dish!
Your next quip will likely be humorous and make sense. But until then, I’m asking Dio whether that’s what he *would * say, not saying that that’s what he did say.
Not as many as on the right, and not many with any power. We have some kooks but they’re pretty easily ignored. There’s no left wing political power equivalent to the religious right, no media equivalent to Fox News, no sectarian equivalent to the Neocons, no disaster equivalent to Bush.
having said all that, I wasn’t arguing about whether there are or are not “fucktards” on the left, only that SA’s particular characterization of liberals was off base. Liberal fucktards might call you a murderer for eating a steak or tell you that American Idol is racist and sexist, or they might bore you to death with a 9/11 conspiracy theory, but they don’t apologize for real oppression in other countries, and they don’t bash America.
See, when we “leftards” on the Dope go into rant mode over a specific instance of fucktardiness on the part of the current administration (or its lackeys, water-carriers, or lapdogs), lobbing an Offshore Human Rights Atrocity[sup]TM[/sup] in our midst is supposed to distract our attention from the subject of the rant.
It’s a strategy with a guaranteed upside for the likes of the ilk: if it works, and we allow ourselves to be distracted, it takes the heat off the original target for the time being, giving the turd-polishers a chance to concentrate on their task. On the other hand, if we ignore it and refuse to be deterred, the ilk gets to scold us for ignoring the plight of brown people.
Do you think that Der Trihs is a liberal? Because he sure bashes the hell out of the US.
Of course, you’d have to have a severe problem with selective reading to think that Der Trihs is representative of all liberals in general. On the other hand, we are talking about Starving Artist here…
You all know perfectly well that there is nothing coming from the left in regard to these issues that is anything like the widespread waves of condemnation that have been brought to bear on issues like race, women’s rights, homosexual rights, child abuse, prisoner rights, etc. The odd attempt by Amnesty International or the sporadic and mostly ineffective infliction of ‘sanctions’ here and there does virtually nothing to combat the deplorable conditions that most of the world’s population has to live under. (And for the record, I’m speaking of leftards in general–as in the overall population–not just those posting here, although certainly the accusation holds here as well.)
Further, one reads condemnation after condemnation around here when it comes to "X"tians and "X"tianity, and often religion in general…but everyone suddenly becomes surprisingly mellow and tolerant when it comes to religions that predominate in other parts of the world. Why are posters to this board (and I am speaking of posters to this board now) so benign and tolerent when it comes to Muslim, Bhuddist, Hindu, etc. religions, but so quick to condemn the alleged stupidity and superstition involved in discussions of Christianity in the U.S.?
Of course we all know why: it it’s characteristic of the U.S. , it’s eeeevil; and if it’s characteristic of other countries, it’s just another culture…and of course, you might be perceived as bigots, which is to be avoided at all costs unless one is speaking of conservatives, Republicans, Christians, and/or the U.S. itself!
There aren’t enough rolleyes available to adequately express the derision that the hypocrisy and two-facedness and equivocation that goes on around here deserves.
The hypocrisy…it burns!
(And now I must repair to the kitchen in order to prepare a sumptious repast for the company we have coming…so I must beg your leave. Caio, all!)