Here’s a link to Newt’s list.
Surprisingly, Milossarian’s words aren’t on the list. Can’t believe Newt missed those. You can still hear Limbaugh, et al., using Newt’s words every day. It’s a little frightening to see how effective propaganda can be.
Would it be too ironic for me to make the obvious comparison between the Republican propagandists and Goebbels? 
Republicans have their extremist wing, just as Democrats do. By no means do the Republican extremists have a monopoly on hate.
In my experience the Op is not correct. There aren’t hateful Democrats or Republicans, just nasty people.
Is there underling assumption that clichés are based on the truth? If that is the case, then Blondes are dumb, Blacks are criminal, and Jews are greedy.
Perhaps I am forcing the roles of White Hatted Demos and Black Hatted Reps more than you intended, but I don’t think so. By believing the Demos only “dislike” the Reps, you showing a bias in your perspective. What sort of evidence is there to support such a belief?
Perhaps I’m going out on a limb here, but the Democrats’ political philosophy embodies the typical Christian values of Poverty, Charity, and Meekness moreso than the Republican’s’ ideology. There has been 2000 years of history associating Christian values with the “Good.” The Republicans, as I see it, claim the religious high road in name only, but don’t practice the values. The Demos practice the values, but don’t take the name.
Milossarian, I always considered myself independent until this election polarized me to your correct assertion of the Democrat side. I find it impossible to believe that you think heat towards Clinton, Cliton and Gore is based solely on personal character and not at all on party lines.
I’m glad you brought up the talk radio point, spoke-. I, too, listen to Rush from time to time. And very, very often do I hear Everyman Republicans stating Rush opinions and using Rush as a bible-like reference of Absolute Truth (and why not, I guess, since that’s what he tells them). What gets me, is that almost everything Rush criticises about those demon liberals can be applied to hardcore conservatives. Often, he attacks his very own opinions with the same heated remarks toward Democrats and liberals.
Back to the restaurant owner I first mentioned, he quoted Rush last week, saying, “Gore will count and recount until he becomes President.” Isn’t that saying, “once all the votes are counted, Gore will be the winner?” Rush and the Dittoheads have a knack of taking these statements that have an apparently obvious support of the other party line and saying it angrily as to denounce the other party. Basically, they say something that any Democrat might say, as well, only they say it with contempt and suddenly the Democrats are demonized. I just don’t get it.
The whole Rush phenomenon is so chock full of hipocrisies, someone could fill a book (wait, Al Franken did). Rush is a conservative Republican and proclaims himself as the most influential man in America because of his radio show, yet attacks liberal media! His defense? That he’s telling the truth! It’s absurd.
Please do not assume I am taking a hard Democrat stance because of this. I could say some of the same about Jesse Jackson, for example, but that’s already been covered. The point of the Rush bashing is, though, I do not hear Everyman Democrats quoting liberal talk shows with the air of Absolute Truth that I hear Everyman Republicans quoting Rush. Once again, I don’t hear the venom from the ones that I do the others. Once again, I mean this in the MOST broad terms possible, that by and large I hear MORE from one side than the other. How much more could be debated.
Here’s my theory: personality types.
Here at the SD we’ve talked about the Myers-Briggs and similar personality type tests. One of the divisions is in the N/S types: intuitive vs. sensing. My theory is that liberal/Democratic types tend to be intuitive personality types, more introspective and better able to relate to people not like themselves; while conservative/Republican types tend to be sensing personality types, less introspective and more “show me/prove it” in their outlook. For me this explains the emotional disconnect I often see in many conservatives: the inability to see the connection between policy and its consequences in the real world.
Incidentally, according to the Myers-Briggs website, while the 16 possible personality types are represented equally N or S, 85% of the general population identifies as a sensing type.
a35362, INFJ and liberal Democrat
Give me other examples over the last 25 years of such similar Republican, conservative “heat” toward Demos.
Michael Dukakis? Walter Mondale? Dick Gephart? Jimmy Carter? Tip O’Neill?
Nope, on all counts. Many were highly critical of some of the above folk’s political positions, but it’s not in the same league as what we’re talking about with CC&G.
One Democrat comes to mind who inspires such ire from Republicans - Ted Kennedy. Admittedly, part of that has to do with just how far to the left he is, but most I’m sure has to do with his evident moral hypocracy. Some Republicans see the same kind of “the rules don’t apply to me” attitude in CC&G as they do in Ted Kennedy.
And spoke-? Making a reference to Nazism when discussing Republicans brings a word off another list to mind, a list of words I’m not allowed to call you in Great Debates.
Cliche’s exist for a reason. Are you saying you have never encountered dumb blondes, blacks with criminal records, Japanese tourists with photography equipment, Democrats that whined, or angry and dismissive Republicans? (BTW, I thought the stereotype for Jews was miserly, and WASPs were greedy).
Listen, all I’m saying is that cliche’s (more accurately here, stereotypes) exist for a reason. I’m not saying this is a good thing, just that it happens. Okay, someone may call me “Wormy” because I was little in grade school. Let’s say today I am 6’2", have a Master’s Degree in nuclear engineering, and lead a prosperous and fulfilling life with my family. Some ignorant cuss that was my classmate might still call me Wormy. Is that who I am? Is that my most dominant feature? Is that how people should judge me? No, no, and no. Does that open a debate as to whether many successful and intelligent people in the sciences might also have been small, unpopular, and called names in grade school. I think yes. Acknowledging a stereotype as true for all in the category and acknowledging that a stereotype simply occurs in reality are two different things.
If this point is greatly disagreed with, then it is not I who have the narrow mind. I doubt Republicans have much to lose as a people if I debate one of their perceived stereotypes.
And very interesting observation on the Christian ties to party lines, Pyrrhonist.
Milossarian wrote:
I was joking, Milo. (Hence the winking smiley.)I was doing a riff on divemaster’s earlier post about equating Republicans with Nazis.
Hmmm…interestingly, this corresponds to the time before Rush Limbaugh’s rise to media emperor.
So you’re saying that once Democrats started acting like Republicans in adopting “the rules don’t apply to me” arena (Reagan and North in Iran-Contra, eg), Republicans started having something to get angry at, as opposed to the docile Carter, Dukakis, et al. Oh, that’s right, North got caught. Perhaps that’s a bad example. We could go as far back as Nixon, or even Ike as someone already mentioned.
Personally, I don’t think past parties have much to do with today’s parties. It’s a much, much different world. Party heads do, however, tend to worship very questionable party heroes (JFK, Reagan, FDR, even Nixon), which is a great detriment.
In my apparent attacks on the right, I’m not defending the left. I’m saying, do not attack from the assumed vantage of moral high ground when you’re not standing any higher than the others. Politics is NOT about who is right or wrong morally. It’s about who can look right or wrong, yes?
If we want to debate the ills of Democrats we can do that. Let me more specific in my debate here. Why TODAY are Republicans seemingly more spiteful towards Democrats than vice versa on the broad level. So far, we have heard:
I have clarified the OP. Answer why this is or why you disagree. The dissenters’ main defense has been that both sides are guilty, which is my defense of all attacks on Democrats. I accept that; whether Demos and Reps can is another story.
An interesting note on the media arguments–the liberal media was shown to casting Democrat sides in a postive light and Republican sides in a negative one. The conservative media was shown to demonize Democrats themselves while canonizing Republicans.
On the personality types, let’s take the assumptions that 85% of the population is sensing, sensing corresponds to Republican, and the population is evenly divided on the party candidates for President. Does that mean that 35% of the population, while possessing Republican tendencies, were compelled to shy away from Bush and vote Gore? Or is this fuzzy math?
First of all, with something like an 85% approval rating, you are automatically incorrect about Republican hatred of Clinton. You have your examples for this hatred, however, it is obvious that many Republicans (assuming our Country has more than 15% of it’s population as Republican) do not HATE Democrats for the sake of hating Democrats. I married a Democrat! My mother is a Democrat. My boss is a Democrat. We all agree that Gore is an asshole and Clinton is a very good President. Your observations are simply not the norm, but limited personal experience.
Now, I can certainly tell you I have observed the opposite. The mere mention of Clarence Thomas brought pledges of banning from the NAACP in Maryland. A black supreme court justice was going to speak at a NAACP-sponsored event and the upper management of the NAACP found out and quickly removed him from the list of speakers because he is a Republican. I have heard an equal amount of venom from Democrats even here on this board as you have heard from your limited group.
But if I believed that all Democrats hated Republicans, or even that all Democrats were far left wing liberals, I would certainly not bother knowing anyone that closed-minded. Most of America is somewhere close to center. It is only those propaganda-eating far right/left wingers that see the opposite side as evil incarnate. Most of us are here in the center somewhere, discussing the issues and compromising and letting the wingers wear each other down to the point that we can get some good centrist law written.
That is why Clinton was so loved. He voted Republican as often as he did Democrat if you were to strike a line right down the center of the two ‘sides’. But to US, the Non-propaganda-eaters-of-America, he was centrist, his wife [Hillary Commie Clinton] is another story, but Clinton voted pretty centrist. Bush presents himself to be centrist, which is why, following 8 years of prosperity and one of the most well-liked Presidents of the 20th Century, Al Gore lost. It should have been a blow out for him. He is simply too closed-minded and arrogant for most Americans.
Howard Stern says the same thing, that he is King of all Media. Believe it or not, 9 out of 10 Republicans have a brain and can weed through the horseshit of both sides to discover their own version of the truth. (No, I don’t have a cite for that) Because of differing views on the same evidence, Democrats see Republicans as buying into all the GOP hype and Republicans see the same of the Democrats. It isn’t necessarily buying into all the propaganda, but differing and irreconcilable analyses of the same information.
Using our most current example, Gore and his leftist wing are so sure that they won the Presidency that they refuse to accept anything less than victory, no matter what it takes to get an ‘accurate’ vote. Bush and his right wing on the other hand are so hypocritical that they yell violation whenever Democratic lawyers get involved and then do everything they can, even trying to overturn Florida’s electoral laws to get/keep a winning verdict.
Both wings are full of crap. Neither cares about what the people wanted. They care about their candidate, period. Anyone who believes that their candidate has any other motives besides getting themselves into office should really question their ability to think for themselves. They are in the minority and they are on the far wings, whether they accept it or not.
I never said the media was “liberal”, just biased. What say you don’t put words in my mouth, eh?
I guess what bugs me is that, beginning with Newt Gingrich, the Republican leadership and the Republican media outlets seem to have set out with a goal of creating hatred toward Democratic leaders. Not disagreement. Not merely honest dissent. But hatred.
Now these efforts have met with varying degrees of success. Obviously, given Clinton’s approval ratings, the majority of Americans do not hate him. But among the Republican Party faithful, I sure have seen a lot of venom (and it was there long before anyone ever heard of Monica Lewinsky).
Why?
The Republicans don’t have the market cornered on hatred.
Take one part disgust, two parts contempt, a pinch of fear and a few dashes of hypocrisy, and you might have something very close to hatred.
That’s what I feel for a number of Republican mouthpieces.
Conservatives have the attitude that they and they alone have the TRUTH the hand of God is on their shoulder. Only black and white right or wrong exists with them and since they have the TRUTH you can’t be moral or a good American without being a conservative Republican at the right hand of God. Rush has stated that Gore and the Democrats are the enemy, they want to destroy America they are evil, immoral etc. The hate that comes from Rush and the conservative media (yes there is a massive conservative media) is way way out of line in civil discourse a nation like ours deserves.
Um, most of what SOME Republicans say about Clinton being dishonest and sneaky and immoral could be applied to Newt Gingrich, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. etc etc…as well as many democrats.
After all, dishonesty is not a Republican or Democratic trait. It IS, however a trait of MOST politicians.
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I trust you have a cite for this.
Only black and white right or wrong exists with them and since they have the TRUTH you can’t be moral or a good American without being a conservative Republican at the right hand of God.
[/quote]
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Once again, I’d like to see some evidence to suggest why you think us conservatives are so perceptually monochromatic.
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Well if he said it, then surely you can provide a cite.
How about a link to the massive conservative hate frothing media?
Poverty, that is a good democrat value:)
Though id say that democrats simply consider republicans their inferiors. Have you ever heard someone calling Gore a moron? On a board where intelligence is so highly prized too. They had just about equal grades and IQs but Bush is a moron. Which is better? Hating someone or considering them your inferior? Both have equally caused wars slavery blah blah blah blah and other bad things.
Though that of course applies to only the hard core on both sides.
Obviously you see more hate when you are the opposite party line.
Ok I have a new question, why are democrats such idiots? I want some democrats to explain to me this. I have always noticed that democrats are idiots because they are idiots, and various super duper left wing guys show this to be true and I also know this one guy who backs this up so it has to be true.
Scylla, you want links? I’ll just give you two.
Take a look at the headlines that these two well-read pages are offering.
“Sore/Loserman Sweeping the Nation”
and
“WIRE: GORE DESCRIBED AS ‘LOST SOUL’; FLABBERGASTED THAT AMERICANS SHOW ‘NO OUTRAGE OVER STOLEN ELECTION’”
Partisan. Sarcastic. Name-calling. Inaccurate. Hate.
It took me thirty seconds to find these links. How long do you think it’s going to take to find an equivalent Democratic page? Eventually, you’ll find them, but you will have to look harder, probably beyond the front page, and what you find will be more charged with ridicule than outright antipathy.
This is a real phenomenon, and I think that it can be shown that it is largely one-sided. But I’m not going to be the one who proves it. I’ve already taken a bath in the conservative septic system of “informative conservative reporting.”
I don’t think I would call either of those hate sights even in hyperbole.
Man o’ man…
I can’t believe that FreeRepublic just got labelled as part of the media. You better retract that statement before they sue you for libel:)
Seriously now. I’m fine with labelling Drudge as media (since he is operating for profit), but I’m not sure I would call Drudge conservative. (certainly not by David B’s definition) And there is no way FreeRepublic gets labelled as:
You mean the liberals get ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, PBS and the majority of the major dailies, and to balance it out the conservatives have to go out and host their own web pages?
Let’s be honest, Free Republic can not be called part of the media.