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Is this kind of hateful rhetoric encouraged on the Democratic watch blog?

I guess I’m in lockstep somewhere between a libertarian and a Nazi.

I guess I just overlook crimes and questionable morals as long as “we’re” winning.

I guess there’s a vast right-wing media conspiracy.

I guess I can’t find a point in this post.

Is it “Republicans bad, Democrats good”?

Is it “Dean’s campaign is awesome”?

If there were anything other than rhetoric here, I suppose there would be something to discuss, perhaps argue about, but it’s a column full of empty statements designed to enflame. Not the best this side of the Watchblog has to offer.

CJ, dsws stated right up front that he was giving his opinion. I found it honest and sincere, as an opinion. You are correct, there is little in it to debate in terms of references or published facts. Are you just disappointed that a liberal posted an opinion you can’t run an attack on?

And reviewing some of your writing, I see a very fair amount of opinion in both posts and comments. Surely, you can’t Janus dsws for giving an opinion.

I see no personal invectives or rebukes in the article’s rhetoric. I think critiquing dsws writing style and subject leaves you wide open for similar evaluation. And we both know where that would lead, being as sensitive as you are.

I would suggest sticking to debating the facts and references as opposed to an editor’s style and subject choice lest you be viewed as the baiter and spark for wars over others doing to you what you have done here.

I would debate the facts, but there are none presented here. I just don’t think it adds much to the discussion. That was my opinion, in response to his opinion. I’m not sure how I can be considered a baiter, unless you’ve decided not to read dsws’s post.

I welcome any and all criticism of my writing. Frankly, I’m not sure what you mean about me being so sensitive, but that’s okay, I can take it. :-)

So, let me get this straight… Since the Republicans can organize and create a broad enough banner to attract “Nazis” and “libertarians”, they think that everything is “us v. them”? Thus the Republicans are Sauron in our Middle Earth of politics and are evil? Because Democrats cannot get their act together? That’s a jump in logic if I’ve ever seen one.

As one of those who is generally under the Republican banner, I have to say that your opinion, while flowery and full of rhetoric, is simply wrong. There are very real and very threatening splits in the Republican party such as the conflict between the socially liberal/fiscally conservative libertarians and the socially conservative/fiscally liberal religious right. For a good example of this, look at the conflicts that Arnold S. is causing with the Republicans in California with his stances. The fact that Terry McClintock has not pulled out of the race is an indication of the lack of lock-step that you seem to think exists.

I’m sorry, but the reason that Democrats cannot and do not win as of late has less to do with Republican solidarity and more with the fact that Democrats like yourself are obviously not living on the same planet as the rest of us. It’s posts like this that show how out of touch with reality you really are. “Know your enemy”, someone famous once said in relation to winning conflicts. You obviously do not know your enemy and as a result spend more time thinking about and fighting phantom problems and adversaries than the real ones. Not a winning strategy IMHO.

Democrats recognize AL SHARPTON as a legitimate presidential candidate, and you criticize Repuplicans for being too accepting of objectionable members?

Republicans are more unified, no doubt, which I think has 2 causes.

First, all the years as a minority party and second a common set of beliefs:

1. Lower Taxes
2. Smaller Government
3. A Strong Military

I think these are the 3 tenets that hold together the coming Republican Majority.

By contrast, the Democratic party has been largely hollowed out, now consisting of mostly hard-core members of specfic interest groups (minorities, abortion rights activists, ageing anti-Vietnam protestors etc.)

Having lost most working Americans, Democrats are reduced to increasingly craven pandering to the various special interest groups (witness the NARAL and NAACP performances of the Democratic presidential hopefuls).

Eventually Democrats will realize that moving farther and farther away from the mainstream isn’t a very good long term strategy, but a they’ll have done a lot of damage to themselves by the time they make that realization.

AndyMac

dsws,

Fantastic opinion piece. Thank you.

You have tapped into what I also *believe* is a truth about the GOP and the change being wrought upon us, and you have correctly identified part of Dean’s appeal to me.

I look at the 2004 election as a way to save American from the clutches of our internal problem: the corporate right-wing and the masses duped into following them.

Since we are talking opinion, let me follow-up on that. It is my opinion that the masses have been duped.

I almost got in a fist fight a few days after 9/11 when I said that I thought all the flag-waving was disgusting. People were really ticked.

But what I saw was the start of a slide into propaganda land where everything done in the name of the flag was OK. I saw the danger coming.

I was told I was wrong. I was right.

When the Iraq war buzz was firing up, I said it would lead to a quagmire, billions of waste and no WMD.

I was told I was wrong. I was right.

THe only way to cure this is to wake up the brainwashed and get them snapped out of it.

It isn’t about converting them to Democrats, or bringing back a Clinton, it is about keeping America.

Robbie D.

I have long had the feelings (and held the opinions) expressed in this piece: namely that the Republican are certainly in lock-step and that their national leadership can do no wrong. Are “they” taking over? It certainly appears so, and it certainly appears as those the democrats are powerless to stop the Republican revolution.

In the south, the traditional stronghold of the democrats, is where the change can really be felt as towns, cities, state legislatures and governorships, elect Republicans to office. Once in they are free to push medieval conservative values on the majority, whilst the later is asleep at the ballot box.

I have joked to my wife that we are moving to Vancouver in the near term; frankly if Bush is elected to another term, that move might become a reality.

I have been thinking about a move to eastern Canada or France… but I really don’t want to let these nuts win.

Anyway, great link on this scary subject:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/955980.asp?0dm=C15PO

Keep calling us evil or at least implying it. It certainly is destroying the discourse and filling it with junk, it is also destroying your party. The Democrats are imploding while they talk about moving to other countries that have socialist governments. Good, go away if that is how you feel. Noone is forcing you to live here. You are behaving as children throwing tantrums because you lost the local stick-ball game. Of course it is all nonsense. You won’t leave the country, you will try to turn America into France or Canada. It’s not working and you need to realize that you ARE out of touch with the mainstream in this country. Republican Leadership controls all three branches of government, not because the rest of the country is brainwashed but, rather, because most of the country is centrist and votes that way. This “the rest of the world is crazy and I’m the sane one” mentality is indicative of two possible facts.
1) The rest of the country is “brainwashed” by some sort of mind-wave generator called the “Shatner-Scope” and you are truly visionary in your ability to detect its influence on all of us “average” Americans…or…..

2) It is, in fact, you who are “wrong”, “brainwashed”, “medieval”, and “duped “.
Such elitism is the very reason why you will continue to lose and nothing that I can do will change that, except to vote.

DSWS, Perhaps you should spend less time watching movies and a little more time watching opinion trends. Remember to vote, and not for who is the best looking woman on Babylon 5 or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
HILARIOUS!

Wow, are we all reading the same blog posting? I find no “hateful rhetoric” here… or at the least, it’s aimed at the Democratic Party as much as at the Republicans. For example:

The other fundamental fact of politics in my lifetime is that Democrats have not been part of the same subphylum with everything from elephants to eels, but rather have been invertebrates, useless blobs of jelly trembling in learned helplessness before the Republican juggernaut.

And what’s so radical about this?

They were sensible, centrist positions: there are problems with the Kyoto treaty, but the right response is to keep negotiating and see if we could get a treaty we could sign and have the Senate approve; international trade is good, but we need to provide incentive for our trading partners to have comparable law to ours governing externalities and labor relations, or the disparities cause problems that can be worse than those caused by the original barriers to trade; a social safety net including universal medical care is good, but we need to tax to pay for what we do, and do only what we’re willing to tax to pay for.

So I’m obviously missing something about this post that pete and CJ found offensive. Would you care to explain it carefully and clearly?

P.S. “Such elitism is the very reason why you will continue to lose and nothing that I can do will change that, except to vote.” Do you mean that your vote will change the elitism… or that you’re planning to vote for a Democratic candidate, which would help change the “continue to lose” part of the equation? ;-)

Hi Pete,

I disagree. I am not *calling* you evil, I am telling you what I believe the leaders of the right to be.

I am glad you brought up the elitism. I never have understood this. When the left thinks they are right, the conservatives call them elitist. When the conservatives think they are right, they call themselves mainstream.

LOL!

“You will try to turn America into France or Canada.” Well, that would be nice… maybe we could do even better. Gotta start somewhere. Ever been to Canada? It’s pretty cool. If they legalize pot, I am THERE… not so much that I need to smoke on the street, but because I would love to live in a society that isn’t afraid to be human.

Oh, and they make health care available. Kinda like Vermont.

Hmmm… who created that Vermont program…

It seems to me that the conservative agenda is about not being human: don’t earn a decent wage, don’t enjoy life, sex is bad, pot is bad, anything said that the goverment disagrees with is bad… It is about mind control. Duping. Brainwashing. Whatever. It is there.

The USA is moving backwards at a faster rate than it moved forward. I am still in the fight, but if Bush’s vision takes any firmer root, I’d have no problem leaving.

You act as if it is a bad thing. Heck, Pete. At some point, all white American’s families left somewhere else for a better life here.

Would it be a crime to go FROM America if there is a better, more progressive and realistic life somewhere else?

What’s the difference?

Robbie D.

The true evil (not that one had been mentioned) is that 55 percent of the voting-age population voted in 2000. So let’s be clear about one thing: there is no mainstream to speak of when about half this country doesn’t bother to register to vote at all. So regardless of their home address, they’ve effectively left the building.

But luckily are still reachable. Now if we could work together here to figure out how to get say, 80 percent of American “patriots” to actually vote - now that would be something to write about. At this point, I’d settle for getting just ONE person who’s never voted before to read this blog and decide it matters enough to vote - then we’ve accomplished something here. (Okay, make that 10 people.)

And I think the solution to the problem, if there ever was one to begin with, is that the comments to this post don’t seem to tolerate anyone else’s opinion but their own. What is so hard about allowing others to express their opinion - when clearly stated as such, which this was. If you disagree, go and offer an opposing opinion if so moved - but can we stop jumping down anyone’s throat for simply expressing an opinion that’s different from one’s own? I honestly don’t care what party you belong to.

And please don’t get me wrong - fallacious thinking, irrational reasoning or dangerous rhetoric should always be challenged. But this was an opinion piece worth reading - and if you don’t agree with it, (Pete - this one’s for you) - go write your own on say…the Republican blog. That way, our readers can read each side - and decide which is more to their liking. But this sort of back and forth in the comments - doesn’t serve any purpose - unless you just want to get soaked in a pissing match. My bet is that most readers will want to stay dry, and will get bored pretty quickly - if they bother staying at all.

Interesting how one Republican or (Republican-leaning) objects to my marvelling at how they can get such an apparently disparate group of constituencies to work together in such unity, while another talks about the core values that he believes make it happen.

Quote:
“Is it “Republicans bad, Democrats good”?”

That seems to assume that the opponents of a great evil are necessarily good, which strikes me as us-vs-them thinking. Neither I nor (by my reading) Tolkein makes that assumption. Dwarves are prejudiced against elves; hobbits are provincial and petty; elves are haughty; men “above all else desire power”; even a wizard cannot look through palantir, nor Aragorn bear the Ring, without being corrupted. Back in the real world, Democrats pander and are spineless, and include some who seem to care for little but their own power.

In theory, I don’t believe in pure evil. I believe there’s selfishness, error, short-sightedness, and a host of other flaws, but I don’t believe that any person is motivated by evil for evil’s sake.

Quote:
“Is it “Dean’s campaign is awesome”?”

It’s that Dean’s campaign seems to be part of something bigger, a sea change in US politics.

Quote:
“There are very real and very threatening splits in the Republican party such as the conflict between the socially liberal/fiscally conservative libertarians and the socially conservative/fiscally liberal religious right.”

So far, those splits have not stopped the inexorable trend toward Republican dominance. If they really threaten it now, I would see that as part of the great change in the political situation.

Quote:
“Democrats recognize AL SHARPTON as a legitimate presidential candidate,”

Afaik, Democrats don’t take Sharpton seriously. The media has decided he’s worth covering, even though he hasn’t filed the FEC papers to have a campaign. Anyone who gets on the ballot is a candidate, but that’s as far as most Democrats go in recognizing Sharpton as one.

Quote:
“…and you criticize Repuplicans for being too accepting of objectionable members?”

On the contrary, I recognize the inclusion of disparate constituencies as one source of their extraordinary rise in power. Nazis are citizens, and have the right to support whatever candidate they choose. Libertarians aren’t objectionable, imo. I mention Nazis and libertarians because they’re seemingly the most absolutely opposed of any possible ideological constituencies, but have been together in the Republican big tent for decades now.

I like this baiting style of argument. No one objects to your implicit inclusion of Nazis in the Republican Party, so now you try again, this time explicitly. Would you care to share some evidence that Nazis are preferentially members of the Republican party?

And I do think it is “hateful” to say Republicans are marching in “lock step” with Nazis. This is no better than Ann Coulter accusing liberals of treason.

You may have missed the barrage of criticism for Trent Lott from the right that eventually led to his stepping down as Senate Majority Leader. Or the lack of party discipline that led to Bill Simon (not Dick Riordan) being the Republican nominee for Gov in California last year. If the Republicans were as machine’-like as you suggest, Riordan would have beat Davis and there would be no recall.

I actually agree with the main thrust of the original post. The Republican party is much more disciplined than the Democrat party. No doubt. I think this is largely due to all the years out of power. Republicans realize that some compromise on individual issues (school vouchers, privatization of social security) in exhange for control of various branches of government (at all levels) is a good trade. Too often (for them) Democrats would rather be right than effective

Let me add one final organizing principle for Republicans

4. Unconditional Love for America

As long as you Dems are going around complaining about flag waving (right after 9/11!) and advocating we try to understand why terrorists hate us, the Republican majority is going to get bigger and bigger.

Soon, Scalia and Thomas will be the moderate bloc on the Supreme Court.

AndyMac

Quote:
“As long as you Dems are going around … advocating we try to understand why terrorists hate us, the Republican majority is going to get bigger and bigger.”

Understanding why terrorists hate us is a vital part of figuring out how to make it harder for them to appeal to potential supporters and recruits. It’s something that anyone who loves this country (or humanity, or life) should do.

Wasn’t there just a Republican saying “know your enemy”?

Quote:
“The Republican party is much more disciplined than the Democrat party. No doubt. I think this is largely due to all the years out of power.”

If this is starting to change now that they are unambiguously in power, that would be a fundamental shift in the dynamics of US politics.

4. Unconditional Love for America

As long as you Dems are going around complaining about flag waving (right after 9/11!) and advocating we try to understand why terrorists hate us, the Republican majority is going to get bigger and bigger.

Let me quote you a little something from Al Franken’s new book, on page 24…

If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they’ll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America… They don’t get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world. That’s why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well. We also want it to do good.

What were you saying about unconditional love for America?