Why I'm sick of liberals!

[Patriot]

It's 1:47 (am) here in the Foggy Bottom district of Georgetown, and with nothing else to do, what else but to speak on matters of personal contempt for those who worship the Donkey, namely, liberals of the democratic persuasion.


I'll tell you why I'm sick of liberals.


1. They hate conservatives but love conservation. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? You see, we conservatives are just as much-- if not more so-- determined to conserve resources than liberals. The resources we're concerned with happen to be more important than those espoused by our Democratic, donkey worshipping, and hence assinine, counterparts. Our resources include moral fabric, heritage, sound fiscal policies, and perhaps most important, the entrepreneurial spirit of the individual, in lieu of social welfare programs. Of course, we care about the environment too. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first president to create National Parks and wildlife preservations with federal funding.


2. Lack of self discipline. Whether it's the long haired hippy with the guitar, the narcotics advocate at Treehuggers Anonymous, or the liberal professor with a messy office, the one thing shared in common by all democrats is the enormous penchant for disorganized living.


3. Tolerance for everything and everyone. Yes, even if it means accepting a lie as the status quo because it's a well respected falsehood. Take Islam, for instance. Liberals, supposedly worlds ahead of conservatives in academia, are the first to uphold the right for people to believe whatever they choose, even if the choice is plain out false! Did Muhammad ride a horse into the sky from the Dome of the Rock? Yes, according to our esteemed non-Muslim friends across the Senate isle. This from the same folks who want to abolish ignorance!

[midcan5]

Geez, "why I hate..." - hate a word? hate an idea? hate people? Hate people, isn't that a little outrageous and why? I love the manipulation of some by others who need a distraction or common foe (especially since the Soviet Union collapsed of its own ineptitude). What should we hate? Are we idea racists, seems so. Poor combination of words you say, listen to Mona Charen sometimes. But what should we hate. We should hate poverty, injustice, suffering, poor wages, dishonesty, robbery. Should we hate Walmart, Enron, Worldcom? Do the cons on here hate those things that are really wrong or are they merely pawns for the Conservative think tanks and talking heads? Think of Walmart for example, poor wages that contribute to societal costs because employees cannot afford the simple things that life should provide. I know this through family. Or Enron, a bunch of crooks who squandered the savings of many Americans. Should we hate that? Not according to the right wingers, we should instead hate liberals. Too much.

[Patriot]

Midcan:

Two points of correction. You had written:


^{Geez, "why I hate..." - hate a word? hate an idea? hate people? Hate people, isn't that a little outrageous and why?}


Looks like you've committed the fallacy of equivocation, and here's why: no one said "hate". The topic is not, "why I hate liberals", but rather, "why I'm sick of liberals. You've chosen to conflate "sick of" with "hate". That type of sloppy equivocation is the same thing employed by other demented democrats who associate the Bush agenda with "fascism". They are not one and the same; to the contrary we are on the cusp of nothing akin to a fascist regime.

That was your first mistake. Your second error is an historical one, namely:


^{The Soviet Union collapsed of its own ineptitude.}


No, it didn't. The Soviet Union collapsed due to the Truman Doctrine of Containment. Evidently, you never heard of this. However, the USSR was cordoned off, economically and geographically, and thus collapsed due to a lack of external resources. It was not "inept" by any means. In fact, the Russians were in space before we were!


^{What should we hate?}


We should hate sloppy methodology employed by ignorant individuals, a category under which you seem likely to fall.

[midcan5]

Yes, hate is different from 'sick of' but how much different and is the subtlety of these distinctions really the point of the original post? Methinks you protest too much. Replace hate with sick of same meaning. So simple an answer for the collapse of Communism - no wonder you are a conservative.

Robert Kaplan was on cspan in-depth Sunday you should have watched.

www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft0003/reviews/bacevich.html

"For most Americans, this interpretation works on two levels. It explains the outcome of the Cold War in a way that is both gratifying and uncomplicated: as the contest entered the late rounds, the Soviet Union, like an exhausted and overmatched boxer, refused to answer the bell. At the same time, it fits with the inclination, dear to Americans in this century, to view history as a triumphal march, with the United States leading humanity, however fitfully, onward to a better life.

"In Political Will and Personal Belief, Paul Hollander, an eminent sociologist who teaches at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, advances an alternative explanation for why the Soviet Union and its satellites foundered. In this account, Reagan scarcely figures. Indeed, the entire world beyond the boundaries of the Soviet Empire scarcely figures. According to Hollander, the cause of collapse was internal, stemming directly from a loss of conviction, not only in the Kremlin, but in other centers of Communist power: Prague, Warsaw, and East Berlin.

The Soviet order unraveled not due to pressure from the West but because those who benefited most from that order—the privileged members of the nomenklatura—no longer believed in the enterprise. Unable beyond a certain point to ignore the disparity between the declared ideals of the Revolution and the drab, suffocating (and under Stalin, terrifying) reality of "real existing socialism," disillusioned members of the political elite gave up on communism. Although the distribution of boodle—dachas, chauffeured limousines, access to special stores, opportunities for travel abroad—made it possible for a time to sustain the appearance of a functioning system, at the core there existed only rot: corruption, mendacity, and rank cynicism."

[Patriot]

Midcan, you wrote:


^{Yes, hate is different from 'sick of' but how much different and is the subtlety of these distinctions really the point of the original post? Methinks you protest too much. Replace hate with sick of same meaning}


The meanings are not the same. If we wish to be exact, we would do well to adhere to exactness. As in math, accuracy in politics is a beneficial thing. "Hate" is a much stronger term than "sick of". By replacing "sick of" with the word "hate", you have put words in our mouths and aggrandized the intentions of conservatives involved in this discussion. It's the same penchant for hyperbole which motivates liberals to equate Bush policies to fascism.


^{So simple an answer for the collapse of Communism - no wonder you are a conservative.}

Communist Russia is a dead beast, thanks to the conciliatory policies of Gorbachev (who incidentally now resides in the US). He had the foresight to see that prolonging the Cold War would only deepen the plummeting Russian economy due to its being a closed market (a reality brought about by the Western Containment policies). It's that simple.

Your citations of other sources basically say exactly what I stated, with a lot of extra verbosity. The USSR could not survive alone in the international system without an open economy; NATO's refusal to allow the USSR an open economy caused the Kremlin to buckle under the weight of its own internal debts. That is why even today, the Russian ruble is extremely low in value.

In response to your citation of the quote by Kaplan, he states:


^{...it fits with the inclination, dear to Americans in this century, to view history as a triumphal march, with the United States leading humanity, however fitfully, onward to a better life.}


If that inclination exists, it does so because it smacks of legitimacy. Show me another nation or sovereignty which has spent more $$ in terms of international aid than the US. Show me another nation or sovereignty which receives a greater flow of immigrants seeking the benefits accrued with citizenship, than the US. The fact is, this great nation has been the beacon of the world for over a century. We were thrust into that role after WWI simply on account of our military strength, industrial resources, and monetary wherewithal.

[Mr. Latin]

say.. didn't the liberal mainstream media make one o' them fallacies of equivocation?
remember that whole joke about gore, "i invented the internet"? he never said that. he said "i took the initiative in creating the internet," referring to his funding and championing of it. so the liberal media used it against him thousands of times.

[Barney]

I looked it up in my thesaurus. Invent and Create are synonymous. Sick and hate are not.

Yes, its that simple.

That is one thing that makes me roll my eyes about liberals. They espouse what they believe to be fact. You correct them with facts and they act as if they never heard you or they just say "same thing" and move on. OR... they revert to old faithful: Conservatives are stupid.

I had one recently rebut with "conservatives practice moral silliness" the subject was the slow shift of minorities to conservative candidates.

[midcan5]

"I looked it up in my thesaurus. Invent and Create are synonymous. Sick and hate are not. "

And that means ? Meaning resides in usage and while dictionaries et al are great helps they do not convey social context:

I'm sick of all the moving into our neighborhood.
I'm sick of seeing flaunt themselves on TV.
I'm sick of expecting everything.

Not too hard to fill in the meaning is it.

[midcan5]

I went back and read the original post and thought that sort of argument works both ways. But that is not productive, so suppose we throw all labels out and instead say this is "what I am sick of?"

I am sick that Americans are dying in a foreign country over sectarian divisions
...that children go hungry in American and in the world
...that children have poor health care and nutrition
...that the wealthy waste the world's resources on frivolous nonsense
...that our jobs are going to other countries only because they work cheap
...that millions die yearly over easily preventable diseases
...that many Americans care more for the unborn than for the living
...that healthcare is not open to everyone in America
...that education is not open to everyone in America
...that a fair wage is not available to everyone

If those things are things I am sick of then I guess I am whatever label you care to use but that does not change them.

[liberalveteran]

I'm new to this room. I'm a registered independant and tend to lean "liberal" on most issue and "conservative" on others. I'm wondering what you definition of "liberal" is versus what it really is. Anyone care to chat?

[liberalveteran]

I really need to get a new keyboard or lean on the "r" key with my elbows or something.

[liberalveteran]

Looks like I've got no takers. By "Lib" do you mean the limp wristed, wine sipping, tree hugging, pinko, homo-sympathizing, America-hating, anyone disagreeing with the conservative ideology Scarecrow imagined and expounded upon by most of you to blame for all of your failures, or an actual Liberal? You know, people who think for themselves and don't follow or agree with what Rush 'The Flaccid Junkie' Limbaugh belches out every day.

[midcan5]

liberalveteran said:

I'm new to this room. I'm a registered independant and tend to lean "liberal" on most issue and "conservative" on others. I'm wondering what you definition of "liberal" is versus what it really is. Anyone care to chat?

Not many folks come here today. I usually post on US MessageBoard since everyone left. But here is my quick parable definition of each:

Conservatism in a Nutshell

A man is lost in the woods and it starts snowing, off in the distance he sees a cabin. Slowly he makes his way only to find a locked gate, he rings the bell and a voice asks what he wants. He tells the voice his plight and is told by the voice that there is a church down the road and that they will pray for him.

Libertarianism in a Nutshell

The snow continues and growing more tired and cold, the man sees another cabin, struggling he barely makes it, he knocks and finally opens the door to warm himself. There is a full kettle of hot soup, he helps himself. Soon out of a back room comes a man, he scolds the man and tells him to leave as this is private property. The man stumbles out the door.

Liberalism in a Nutshell

Nearly exhausted the man sees a third cabin. Slowly he makes his way, opens the door and warms himself. There is soup in a kettle and he helps himself. From a back room a woman enters, she sits down next to him and they talk. He sleeps the night on the floor and the next morning goes on his way.

(with apologies to Jeremy Waldron)

[angrypuppy]

You need to get out more. ... I think back to when I was a Pup. I was really questioning. One day I stuck out my thumb and started a new hobby, an adventure... so to speak. Five years later I landed. Of all the things I Did Or Didn't Do, Saw or didn't See, I Never even Considered a Perspective such as that. Had I , I would have No Hope for Humanity. I Did learn that there are Angels and Demons Everywhere. Ya can't always distinguish, so be careful about Pre-Judging, Slamming Doors and Burning Bridges.

[gettinafterlefty]

liberals are always on the wrong side of being right