I’ve been lurking in some GD threads and thinking about politics lately. In the genocide thread,Der Thris had this to say:
Now, I don’t usually agree with Der Thris, and I wouldn’t have phrased it the way he did, but I think this is mostly true, particularly about the gay rights and abortion clinic violence, and it prevents me from being able to take the republicans seriously. I don’t think I’m alone in this. However, were it not for all the religious crazies, if the republicans were actually anything like they should be (started out? I’m pretty young, and don’t remember sensible republicans) I think I could get behind them.
In the Bob Barr thread, Sam stone said:
Most of that would work for me. I’m not a fan of big government, although I do agree with a lot of other dem ideals, but the dems seem to be my only choice as the right wing appears to be a bunch of crazy biggots.
So those of you who are still republicans, how do you justify it? Do you disagree with Der Thris, not in general, since that’s probably a given, but in his statement above? Is there one pet issue that keeps you with the pubs? Do you think the party will ever resemble **Sam Stone’s **outline? Defend your party, please.
I can defend the Republican part by pointing out that lefties have their crazy, violent fringe too. Der Trihs himself has gleefully discussed the hypothetical murder of every American soldier, if only he had the power. Animal rights activists have destroyed property and committed violence over their beliefs, communists in history have murdered a bunch of people who resisted the theft of their property, and anarchists are responsible for all sorts of strange, isolated crimes.
America, in the grand scheme of things, has moved pretty consistently left since the mid 1900s, despite some setbacks. For the most part, government is participating more in the welfare of its citizens now than previously, the accumulation of wealth is more regulated now, and minorities are less marginlized than before. All of these put more pressure on the right than on the left, causing the right to feel more threatened than the left. We see more crazy right wingers than left wingers because the political trend is threatening them more than us.
Well, shit, the Democrats were in favor of slavery, at one point, and there was a Democratic president (Johnson) in office during the Vietnam War. I think the Democrats probably also supported World War II.
Every soldier in Iraq. Since when has killing invading/occupying soldiers been murder, and not war ? Plenty of German soldiers died in the process of ending the Nazi occupation of Europe; were they all murdered ?
Or, let me guess, it’s only murder when it’s American invaders and occupiers being killed.
From 1933 through 1980, the Republicans were the (more or less) Loyal Opposition rather than the party in power. In terms of discussing how each party is currently constituted, arguments may be advanced to start the Republican clock in 1968 (the Southern Strategy) or 1976 (the Rise of Reagan) or 1982 (the Taking of the Senate) and it might make sense to start the Democrat clock in 1972 (the Change to the Primaries) or 1980 (the Loss of the Blue Collar Vote) or 1996 (the post-Gingrich Re-assessment), but pointing to events such as WWII or Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting or the Dixie-crats or a host of other historical events more than 40 years old is really irrelevant to any discussion of the current situation.
I’m not really interested in debating this particular point. I was just using you as an example of an extreme and violent leftist, at least on the boards. I assume you’re much less hostile in person.
Actually, you only half got it. It refers to a character in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary, who wore a red shirt and tended to get dismemebered a lot. So, my name’s a reference to a reference to Star Trek.
It’s not my fault you’re so sheltered you think I’m what qualifies as far left. Or that you think that wanting to treat American soldiers the same way I’d treat other soldiers that invaded a country that wasn’t a threat “extreme and violent” leftism.
I noticed you ignored my question of why American soldiers deserve such special treatment.
I also don’t mention I’m an atheist. It’s amusing how many of the people on this board who want to portray me as some rabid extremist like to make thinly veiled threats of violence towards me.
It’s not a question about basic moral value, but the excessiveness of the view. I don’t think I would have pushed a button that killed every japanese and german soldier instantly, for example. But you are arguing that doing so would have been moral and just. In fact, that statement was made in an entirely unrelated thread about what the first thing you would do with hypothetical superpowers. The FIRST THING you would do with superpowers is kill a couple of hundred thousand people? Really? Isn’t there better ways to stop wars? Or is it just a case of “they all deserve to die” and you’re just willing to be the executioner? That’s why I think you’re a good example of a violent and extreme leftist.
Also, I don’t recall a “in Iraq” qualifier in your earlier post. I’m pretty sure I recall something more along the lines of “anyone who joins the military in the current political climate is evil and deserves to die” qualifier. Are you sure you didn’t just add that on here?
This is a ridiculous statement, other than that the American right is pro-gun. There is plenty of bigotry in America, but it doesn’t follow party lines. As should be apparent from the recent Democratic primary, race played a huge factor. Hillary trounced Obama in a lot of midwestern and southern states. In fact, the Democrats put identity politics in play in a big way. It was the woman against the black. Would the black vote trump the woman’s vote? Would the white men break for the white woman or the black man? Such a conundrum.
Segregation in the south existed when it voted overwhelmingly Democratic. Segregation ended while the South was voting Republican. Not that this means anything, other than to point out that Democrats have historically been every bit as racist as Republicans. For every Jesse Helms there was a Robert Byrd. There is plenty of anti-Semitism on display on the far left, as well as racism against southern whites.
As for being ‘pro violence’, I’d say that Republicans would probably argue the opposite - that Democrats being soft on crime and caring more for the criminal than the victim led to more crime, and it was Republicans like Reagan and Guliani that cleaned up the streets and made them safe for people. I would call that an oversimplification with some truth behind it.
As for modern foreign policy, the Democrats were just as aggressive under Clinton as the Republicans are now. Clinton intervened militarily numerous times during his presidency. Clinton bombed the Sudan and authorized major military actions against Iraq. John Kerry and Joe Biden were calling for regime change in Iraq.
As for support for crappy dictators, I seem to recall a lot of Democrats and liberals supporting the Sandinistas, and one or two prominent liberals on this board supporting Hugo Chavez. In my country, our Liberal party is great friends with Fidel Castro, and our most famous liberal Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, was such good friends with Castro that when Castro fell ill recently Trudeau’s son flew in to wish him well.
In the 1960’s, almost all the street violence that was taking place was instigated by the left. From the Weathermen to the Black Panthers to street riots and violent protests.
According to the FBI, in 1999 there were 10 episodes of domestic terrorism in the United States. Six of them were carried out by the Animal Liberation Front, a far left organization, and two by the Earth Liberation Front, another far-left group. The other two were attacks by an individual (mass murders) - one an Aryan Nations nutjob who killed some Jewish people, and the other a two-state shooting by a right-wing nutjob.
From that cite:
They became a less serious threat in the 1990’s not because they weren’t still around, but because the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived them of some motive and a lot of cash, since the Soviets fed a lot of money into American left-wing groups.
In the last election, there were numerous episodes of left-wing violence against Republicans. Several Republican offices had shots fired into them. One campaign office had the tires of the vehicles of the workers slashed. One Republican had a swastika burned into his lawn. There was a bomb threat at the Lake Havasu Republican headquarters. There were numerous reports of Bush-Cheney signs being torn down and homes displaying such signs being vandalized. The windows were smashed at the Bush-Cheney headquarters in Portland. The Bush headquarters in Orlando were ransacked by union thugs.
Speaking of Union thugs, union violence is rather common, and almost all of them are heavy supporters of Democrats. The AFL-CIO appears to have coordinated multiple attacks on Republican offices in the last election according to the last cite.
There’s a common attack lefties use - the pie in the face. A lot of right-wing politicians and public figures have been hit with pies.
If you want to see left-wing violence, all you have to do is try to organize Republicans on a campus. One Republican club constantly had its newsletters stolen. Members of Republican organizations are yelled at, spit at, and threatened.
Here in Canada, we face a lot of censorship, and almost all of it comes from the left. A human rights tribunal in Alberta recently ruled that a pastor who has made anti-gay sermons can not speak out against gays for the rest of his life, including quoting passages from the bible deemed anti-gay. Mark Steyn, a conservative author, was hauled up before a human rights tribunal recently for writing ‘America Alone’. Ezra Levant was hauled up in front of the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Mohammed cartoons a few years ago.
This is not to say that the right doesn’t engage in such things as well. The point is that the right does not have a monopoly on violence and the desire to do violence. From what i can tell, extremists come from both sides, and the non-extremists on both sides are equally likely to eschew violence.
If you want to support the right or left, do it because you agree with their philosophy, not because some extremist tells you the other side eats babies.