don’t you understand?
What part of that is criticizing “specific individuals or spokespeople”? He’s critisizing the entire audience.
Yes, and conservatives *never * say derisive things about people from New England, or Massachusetts in particular. :rolleyes:
Before Schwarzenegger ran for office, conservatives were always saying about Hollywood actors who expressed an interest in politics: “Who cares what you think? Go back to Hollywood!”
But, of course, when Schwarzenegger ran as Republican, these same people didn’t tell him “Who cares what you think? Go back to Hollywood!”.
No, suddenly, these people were talking about his charisma and his other qualities, and that his Hollywood cachet will be a benefit to the Republican party.
Give me a friggin break! You can’t complain about the irrelevance of Hollywood celebrities only when they are from the opposing side!
Are you honestly going to maintain that political parties and pundits do not seize upon percieved “evils” of the other side and play them up and exploit them, or is this just yet another dodge?
Duhhh…I don’t know…me just dumb conservative…me not know how to read so good.
Look, I know people who are more educated and have achieved more success than 90% of the people on this board. Many of them voted for Bush. So explain that.
I’ve never heard them say anything like that.
Schwarzenegger was an actor who decided to veture into politics professionally. As was Ronald Reagan. Cameron Diaz and Ben Affleck are a couple of pretty people who are just throwing in their 2 cents about issues they may or may not understand. Their oppinion is meaningless as it is simply their opinion based on whatever pet issue they picked up that week. It is not the fact that they are from Hollywood that makes them irrelecant. They are not politicians or political science experts or economists.
Surely, with your advanced Liberal intellect, you can see the difference.
Of course not. That’s why I said “doesn’t seem to be” instead of “isn’t”. The whole thesis of this thread is simply not provable one way or the other. We’re operating in IMHO territory.
We are not saying that everybody that voted for Bush is ignorant. We are just saying a large proportion of them are, as shown in the PIPA poll for example.
So, I’m confused, what is that means once you “venture into politics professionally” that suddenly makes your opinion so much more valuable? You mean, all the actors have to do is stick a little “politician” sticker on their lapel and all of a sudden their opinions are much more worthy of respect?
Apparently so.
Because you haven’t addressed my point, which was that you claimed the quotes in the OP critisized “specific individuals or spokespeople”, but I showed that was not the case.
What are you trying to prove with this?
If you think the OP is saying that all Republicans are stupid, then you’re wrong
If you think the OP is saying that many Republicans are stupid, then, the existence of some Republicans “who are more educated and have achieved more success than 90% of the people on this board” does not prove anything, because “many Republicans are stupid” does not contradict “some Republicans are smart.”
In fact the OP was not about how many stupid people there are in the two camps. The OP was about the fact that both sides are condescending to each other, but the latest “meme” is that it’s the liberals only who do it. What does your statement of having smart friends have to do with anything?
I do agree that Schwarzenegger took the extra step of actually running for office.
However, that doesn’t make him more of an expert on any topic than anyone else in the U.S. If he’s been a politician for many years, then yes, he would have more expertise to talk about politics than ordinary citizens.
But just because someone decides to run for office does not automatically give them more expertise in any of the political issues than any other ordinary citizen.
Also, regarding the Hollywood comment, I saw a lot of people (mostly on Fox News and similar places) who said something like “Hollywood celebrities should just stop meddling in politics and go home and just stick to making movies” in response to stuff said by Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, etc.
Obviously they hadn’t thought how this exact same sentence could apply to *their * Hollywood guy.
Hey, you’re mocking me. You must be a liberal! Because *only * liberals mock their opponents.
Since this has been brought up already, I’m curious… why do some people, and I do NOT mean that pejoratively, take offense at celebrities stating their opinions/beliefs/feelings on things? Now, I can understand if it’s incredibly obnoxious or pushy (which I suppose, all depends on one’s perception and tolerance level, but I think you all know what I mean), but if it’s simply their personal take on things, why is that a problem? I know I’d much rather listen to anyone who wants to give weight to an idea(s) instead of a bunch of silly folks running around talking about doing nothing but partying, getting laid and showing off (not, I’m assuming, that there’s anything wrong with that ;)) as much as they’ve got as possible.
And I mean this across partisan lines. I’m not much of a gun advocate, but Tom Selleck has always come across as respectful and thoughtful. (Yeesh, I hope I have that right.) By the same token, I can’t stand Toby Keith’s attitude. So, I just don’t get it. I can listen to whoever, but at the end of the day I have to make up my own mind and everything that’s gone into that, is just that… information leading up to formation of my stance. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong though. Can anyone explain why this seems to be such a big deal to some?
That sloppy CNN! How could they possibly have neglected what was obviously such a large factor? Look at the threads on the SDMB alone! There must have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people who were so pissed at Michael Moore, Madonna, and Cher that they voted Bush just to spite them. Curse you CNN for not tracking this most vital of questions.
I think being the governor of CA is a little more than just putting an elephant or donkey sticker on your windshield. Now if Affleck were an expert in whatever issue he was discussing, I might take his views more seriously. Face it, the only reason they get up there is so like minded people can say “Hey! I believe that too! Looks like I’m the right track.”
It’s not a matter of taking offense. From my perspective, it is a blatent attempt to manipulate the more simpleminded voters by attempting to appear “fashionable” or “trendy”. Just because Charlton Heston is a great actor does lend any more or less credibility to his arguments on gun control IMHO.
Ok first of all your entire OP does not prove your argument. You have discovered a quote by a conservative that insults liberals. Congratulations. That in no way has anything to do whether Liberals are any more or less condescending to the electorate. All you have proven with your annecdotal pieces is that there are jerks on both sides of the fence.
Maybe what you might want to do instead of playing “but look what he said!” is to figure out how that negative perception got started and why it continues to persist.
So if I were to report an exit poll result that went something like:
Did Hollywood celebrity endorsements help or hurt Bush?
-and-
Did Hollywood celebrity endorsements help or hurt Kerry?
With numbers that suggested a large majority of Bush voters, and a small majority of Kerry voters, felt that the Hollywood celebrity endorsement had hurt… what would you think?
Well, I could dump the entire contents of Lexis/Nexis in this thread (if I had access to it) to prove my point.
Since I can’t do that, I just took a well-respected conservative online magazine and very quickly found two articles that were condescending to liberals.
If you want, I could do this everyday (or whenever National Review updates), as well as get more material from Free Republic, etc.
Do you have any doubts that I would find ample cases of condescension towards liberals?
Well, I don’t know how it got started and why it persists. If you know, maybe you can provide some insight (and cites).
My guess, though, is that some Republican pundit felt condescended by something a liberal said, and formed “the great condescention theory” in his mind and started spewing it in the media, completely forgetting how condescending conservatives are towards liberals (remember how they made “liberal” a dirty word).
And since the “liberal” media are a bunch of lazy morons and didn’t counter the claim, it stuck a little, and so started being repeated ad nauseum on TV and in print, and pretty soon it became a “known fact”, just like the other crap the Republican noise machine repeats ad nauseum until they become “known facts”.
I’d think you had some real evidence for the assertion you have been harping on about in the pit. Until such time, however, I continue to think the topics CNN polled on were far more relevant to a fact-based discussion of why the voters made the choice they did.
But Schwarzenegger and Reagan are/were political science experts or economists, not egotistical dilletantes looking for a second career where they could stay in the public eye after their looks were gone? Maybe on the same planet where Charleton Heston is a “great actor.”
Thanks for the answer. I suppose I never thought anyone would follow another’s lead because it was the “in” thing to do. Nor did it ever cross my mind that might be the reason for said person espousing a certain belief. Just goes to show that there’s always one more thing to learn and consider. I appreciate it.
And lest there is still doubt as to how condescending Republicans are, and how effective their tactics are, there’s an article on CNN about words popularized by election 2004:
So two of the four most-used words are words used by conservatives to denigrate their opposition. In one case Kerry, and in the other case the entire population that is liberal.
The fucking chutzpah of conservatives to keep complaining that they are being condescended upon is amazing!
As a side note, notice that three of the four words (flip-flopping, “moral values”, and liberal as a perjorative term), are talking points of the Republican party, which shows how effective they are in framing the public discourse.
I would just like to add when Michael Medved guest hosted Limbaugh’s show a few years ago he made the comment, “Conservatives love their children more than liberals do.” A small example to be sure but I have never forgotten it.