Liberalism inside

[Tossica]

http://www.alternet.org/story/57001?page=1

[Narrock]

Wow, even I don't know any conservatives who say that the war in Iraq is an "amazing success." Weird...

[Arlos]

And people wonder why I make fun of Lyion for posting articles from that fish-wrapper of a magazine...

-Arlos

[Lyion]

Wow, even I don't know any conservatives who say that the war in Iraq is an "amazing success." Weird...

Remember, this is a 'liberal' quoting conservatives. Take it with a grain of salt. The article was silly, but not surprising.

Think Cindy Sheehan and her ilk. Honesty and integrity are not important to that lot.

I'm sure liberals would be much more at home at the Yearly KOS convention with it's fair views and rational discussions. I'd take the NR cruise, I occasionally read the online site since it has a lot of good writers who amazingly have a pretty balanced viewpoint, not that those attacking them would know, since it's easier to spew propaganda than to actually read and judge for oneself.

It's somewhat proven by reading more.

Here's a quote from a bit further down in that article. Notice the dissent? Try finding honest debate from the leftwing whackjobs. You won't. It's all unhinged silliness, all the time.

Then, with a judder, the panel runs momentarily aground. Rich Lowry, the preppy, handsome 38-year-old editor of National Review, says, "The American public isn't concluding we're losing in Iraq for any irrational reason. They're looking at the cold, hard facts." The Vista Lounge is, as one, perplexed. Lowry continues, "I wish it was true that, because we're a superpower, we can't lose. But it's not."

No one argues with him. They just look away, in the same manner that people avoid glancing at a crazy person yelling at a bus stop. Then they return to hyperbole and accusations of treachery against people like their editor. The ageing historian Bernard Lewis - who was deputed to stiffen Dick Cheney's spine in the run-up to the war - declares, "The election in the US is being seen by [the bin Ladenists] as a victory on a par with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We should be prepared for whatever comes next." This is why the guests paid up to $6,000. This is what they came for. They give him a wheezing, stooping ovation and break for coffee.

A fracture-line in the lumbering certainty of American conservatism is opening right before my eyes. Following the break, Norman Podhoretz and William Buckley - two of the grand old men of the Grand Old Party - begin to feud. Podhoretz will not stop speaking - "I have lots of ex-friends on the left; it looks like I'm going to have some ex-friends on the right, too," he rants -and Buckley says to the chair, " Just take the mike, there's no other way." He says it with a smile, but with heavy eyes.

Podhoretz and Buckley now inhabit opposite poles of post-September 11 American conservatism, and they stare at wholly different Iraqs. Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who travelled through a long phase of left-liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America's power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time. Today, he is a bristling grey ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims: "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria … This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and " thank God" for that.

Buckley is an urbane old reactionary, drunk on doubts. He founded the National Review in 1955 - when conservatism was viewed in polite society as a mental affliction - and he has always been sceptical of appeals to " the people," preferring the eternal top-down certainties of Catholicism. He united with Podhoretz in mutual hatred of Godless Communism, but, slouching into his eighties, he possesses a world view that is ill-suited for the fight to bring democracy to the Muslim world. He was a ghostly presence on the cruise at first, appearing only briefly to shake a few hands. But now he has emerged, and he is fighting.

"Aren't you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?" Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. "No," Podhoretz replies. "As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf War I, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran." He says he is "heartbroken" by this " rise of defeatism on the right." He adds, apropos of nothing, "There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we're winning." The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn't he sound like the liberal media?.

[Zanchief]

You spew nothing but propoganda, Lyion, so I won't take your word for it.

[Lyion]

I'm heartbroken a fair and balanced type of guy like you won't discuss alternate opinions. For the next worldly surprise, maybe the Pope will say the Catholic Church is the one true church.

[Zanchief]

I would hope you'd take my criticism and aim it inward and do some soul searching, but alas.... The difference between you and me, Lyion, is that I have never claimed not to have strong beliefs. You claim to be objective, which is obviously completely false.

You’re the man who said Bush would be remembered as one of the greatest Presidents of all time during his first term and were in complete agreement with his war of terror. In hindsight it’s not only the execution that’s fucked up but every single thing we (fair minded liberals) have been screaming about (no proof, no possible solution, no good motive).

Once again, the Liberals were absolute right. History is full of similar situations where stubborn people like you have been on the wrong side of the argument, and Liberals have been fighting to keep the world moving forward. Where would we be if it wasn’t for civil rights movement in the 60s. What about slavery before that? I have no doubt the environment will soon be another ‘oops let’s forget about this whole thing’ issue for your brethren.

[Lyion]

I guess the soul searching and looking for the truth is for others, but never yourself, eh?

That'd interfere with attacking those who have differing viewpoints. Or making red herring faux arguments of moral indignation, which is comic coming from someone who in all likelihood has no real opinions, and just tows the line, as you do.

[Arlos]

I like that Lyion is identifying with people who actually firmly believe that executing political dissidents, or those who have a difference of opinion in how the country should be run is completely morally justified. Now there's some open and balanced debate for you; "Lets execute some of the people that disagree with the president and then there'll be some changes, you'll see!" Oh yeah, that is a sentiment COMPLETELY in line with the Constitution and the intent of the founding fathers.

I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

Congratulations, Lyion. You have completed your path down the road to Fascism. Most of us could see that's where you were heading all along anyway, kudos on finally making it.

-Arlos

[Zanchief]

Oh well I tried.

[Lyion]

Hey, more propaganda and gossip posing as a factual political debate.

Arlos, your lot is 1000 times more fascist than I could ever dream of being.

Overregulation, Federalized everything, government controlled work. More central government spending and programs..

I'm for smaller central government, good national defense, and more Federalism.

You and yours are for the huge bloated central government paying for health care, jobs, regulating business to the Nth degree.

You put a quote that is obviously tongue in cheek and take it seriously, while visiting the Huffpost which is calling for Cheney to be killed, Bush to be impeached, and anyone with a dissenting viewpoint to have violence visited upon them as just and good.

Arlos, I like you as a person, but you are like Zan a zealous left wing person who considers dissent to be fascism. Fascism is an overstrong centralized government with too much power.. Hey, which party wants the Fed doing and controlling everything and who supports that?

Oh well I tried.

No, you didn't. You did the same bullshit you always do which is viewing the world through a narrow prism that detests actual discourse and cheers your side, akin to some of the young people on this board you mock, and yet display the same behavior.

[Arlos]

Obviously tongue in cheek? It was nothing of the kind. And once again you attribute my beliefs to websites I've never visited. How many times do I have to re-iterate the fact that I avoid the hard-left sites like the plague? I don't read the demagoguery from either side. Meanwhile, you wallow in it.

I certainly wouldn't advocate anyone being assassinated. IMPEACHED, yes, assassinated, no. I've felt they were both impeachable for years.

Also yet again you attempt to put words in my mouth and claim for me beliefs I don't have. I realize it makes your arguing easier to claim for me stuff you wish I had, but it doesn't make you any more correct. For example, I have never once called for Business to be regulated to the Nth degree. I have advocated holding businesses to strict environmental standards as well as worker-safety standards, of course. It is telling that you think making businesses not spew poisons directly into our air, ground water and earth is "Regulating them to the Nth degree". You sound like you finally went and joined the Brown Earth society.

Finally, as I've said before, I have no problem paying a larger share of taxes if it means society benefits as a whole. Indeed, I feel if that there is a national health system, it will make it EASIER for small businesses than before, as now they won't be having to either let their employees go uninsured (and thus possibly miss work due to extended untreated illnesses), or shell out a significant fraction of their business income towards bloated insurance company payments. You, on the other hand, are fine with homeless people starving to death, infants dying because of lack of pre-natal care, and average citizens going tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt because of medical emergencies, sometimes even going into such debt when they HAVE insurance. Oh yes, we know where YOU stand: the individual is unimportant, whatever business wants, business gets, regardless of the human or environmental cost. Going to campaign to repeal anti-trust laws next?

-Arlos

[Zanchief]

Where did all these words come from, why are they in my mouth all of a sudden.

For someone who always claims to be a master debater, you sure are the first to fly into red-face when confronted.

[Lyion]

You talk about higher taxes, but claim to have no issues with small business. Where the fuck do you think those taxes come from? It isn't the Rockefellers or Clintons or Edwards or the thousands of DNC trial lawyers you seem to be fine with who sue the living shit out of Doctors to make millions. Those taxes are flayed directly from small business.

You are for the government taking care of the individual and telling them what to do, I'm for the individual taking care of themselves and the government intervening as a last resort at the LOCAL level.

I'm glad you are so quick to want to tax me more so that your socialist ideas of regulation and health care with the underlying point of the government controlling more of my life, but seriously fuck that noise. The government needs to get the fuck out of stuff it has no business being involved in, preferably before we go bankrupt due to the political promises of free college, free healthcare, open borders, and huge government regulatory agencies take over, as you and your ilk have clamored for again and again.

[Evermore]

Fascism is an overstrong centralized government with too much power.. Hey, which party wants the Fed doing and controlling everything and who supports that?

The Republicrats or the Demapublicans.

[Zanchief]

Jeez where do these assumptions come from? I hate all those silly frivolous law suits. I'm glad to hear it's only Democrats who are suing people though. That seems to simplify things for everyone.

The top 1% get their taxes raised by 1% and they cry like little babies, and you're first in line with your pitch fork. Here is the problem. The argument that they worked hard for their money is complete garbage, they worked other people hard for their money and have profited off of them. The rich aren't the hard workers, they're the exploiters. They're the ones who know how to get the most out of the system and squeeze everyone under them for everything they're worth, and these are the people you want running your hospitals? Yea, that seems like a GREAT idea. So we pinch them a little bit and give the money back where it should have been in the first place.

Could you imagine if college was free to everyone? I couldn't possibly imagine a world founded more on merit then on wealth and social stature then that. If you want to get into college bust your ass and get the grades you need, regardless of where you grew up and what your parents do. Aren't you all for that kind of thinking or is it only when it is to YOUR benefit.

[Tikker]

Honesty and integrity are not important to me

fixed

[Arlos]

Once again, Lyion cherry-picks from statements, ignoring that which he cannot defend again, and puts words and beliefs in other people's mouths. It's his standard practice, really. He can't actually argue his position against other people's argumetns, so he makes up arguments and argues against THAT.

So, let me quote myself here:

I have no problem paying a larger share of taxes

Notice the *I* in there? ME pay. Yes, I am willing to pay MY share for the added benefits. Honestly, though, I think a great way to pay part of the costs would be to legalize pot and tax it like they do tobacco. Between tax income, reduced enforcement costs, and not having to pay incarceration costs for non-violent pot smokers, that'd come to 50-100 billion a year, easy.

Yes, small business would have to help pay taxes for national health care. Guess what: anyone who offers health insurance now will probably pay LESS than they do already. You keep decrying trial lawyers without ever offering a shred of proof that they're the sum total of the problem. Indeed, people have posted articles indicating the opposite numerous times. Sure, frivolous lawsuits are bad, but so is making it difficult for people to get recompense from negligent or incompetent physicians who screw up and damage someone's health.

Finally, what possible causal link do you draw between universal health coverage and the government telling people what to do? Huh? Nothing in that prevents you from picking which doctor you want to see etc. Claiming otherwise is a scare tactic with no basis in reality. Show me *ANYWHERE* where I've advocated the government EVER interfering in people's private lives. The only ones who want THAT are the conservatives who want government in our bedrooms, because we might be getting blowjobs. (hello, sodomy laws. You think a liberal wrote those?)

-Arlos

[Kramer]

well, aside from the e-arguing going on, i thought this was kind of hillarious....

"I adjust and stiffly greet the first man I see. He is a judge, with the craggy self-important charm that slowly consumes any judge. He is from Canada, he declares (a little more apologetically), and is the founding president of "Canadians Against Suicide Bombing". Would there be many members of "Canadians for Suicide Bombing?" I ask. Dismayed, he suggests that yes, there would."

and, hopefully people read this for what it is, a miniscule sampling of a gigantic mass that are extreme....

might as well say that all cons are Rush and all libs are Amy Goodman

[Tikker]

Aren't you all for that kind of thinking or is it only when it is to YOUR benefit.

Lyion definitely is, but to a certain extent most people are

[Harrison]

History is full of similar situations where stubborn people like you have been on the wrong side of the argument, and Liberals have been fighting to keep the world moving forward.

[Zanchief]

History is full of similar situations where stubborn people like you have been on the wrong side of the argument, and Liberals have been fighting to keep the world moving forward.

No opinion detected.

[Harrison]

Anyone who has done any amount of reading would disagree with your opinion.

History isn't going anywhere.

[Arlos]

Once again, you fail to grasp the point.

Who was it that kept civil rights legislation alive in the 50s and 60s? Who was it that forced Jim Crowe laws and legalized segregation to be repealed? Funny, that'd be the liberals. Who was fighting for the status quo, to keep segregation and forced racial inequality? That's right, the conservatives.

Funny, but that fits Zan's exclamation almost exactly: Conservatives like Lyion were on the wrong side of teh debate, and liberals were the ones who kept pushing things forward.

Or wait, maybe you'd have heard of all of that if you'd actually, you know, gone to school.

-Arlos

[Kramer]

i actually agree with harrison, please erase this post after you read it....

for real, there is a constant tension between extremes and the moderate, which is typically a balanced and doable solution, is trampled in the fervor of the extremists....

people rarely act on anything until it is in an extreme state of decline. i am talking large scale here. (e.g. environment, wars of many kinds, genocide, social unrest)

once again this is on the big universal scale of things.

power corrupts people and by the time you get people to a place of great power, there is rarely a consideration for individual well-being, rather there is pushing ideologies and agendas where the ends justifies the means, no matter who wants the end in the first place.