Liberal Condescension

[Achilleez]

If you go far enough left wing or far enough right wing you will end up at the same spot.

[berkshirescouter]

If you take a wingnut and cut off one side depending on which way look at it all you see is a right wing nut or a left wing nut. Notice the common word is nut.

[NJCubScouter]

But as a general rule, Republicans police their own. Case in point - David Duke hasnt gained much ground since his coming out party a few years ago - YET, Al Sharpton is a Presidential candidate. A candidate that the likes of Howard Dean, John "F" Kerry, Richard Gephardt, and others take seriously. Why? Because they're pandering for every possible vote - no matter what the cost.

 

Um, welcome back to Issues and Politics, Rooster. And you return in fine fashion. Your comparison of David Duke and Al Sharpton, showing how Republicans "police their own" while Democrats supposedly don't, is not only a misinterpretation of the facts, it is the exact opposite of the truth.

 

David Duke, who was supposedly "policed" by the Republicans, actually got 43.5 percent of the vote for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana. He received a majority of the white vote. I am fairly certain that if I were able to find a breakdown by party for that election, it would show that he received a majority of the Republican vote, and understandably so, because he was the Republican candidate. And, incidentally, he was once elected to the Louisiana state legislature, as a Republican.

 

Has Al Sharpton ever been elected to anything, as a candidate of any party? No. Has he ever been nominated to any office by the Democratic Party? No. He has run in local Democratic primaries in New York and has always lost. Is he going to be the Democratic nominee for president? There's not a chance in the world. The nationwide polls have shown him with 3 to 5 percent of the Democratic vote, which by interesting coincidence is about ONE-TENTH the percentage received by Republican candidate David Duke for U.S. Senate. As for why the other Democratic candidates are treating Sharpton like a candidate, it's because he's a candidate. They are also treating Dennis Kucinich (who by the way, is probably to the left of Al Sharpton) as a candidate, even though he is at about 1 or 2 percent. But these are candidates for a nomination. They are not elected office holders and party nominees for higher office, as David Duke was.

[eisely]

Boy this thread sure took off like wild fire.

 

NJCubScouter, you are correct. I did indulge in a little bit of labeling. But the truth is that many leading liberal politicians and pundits do condescend to the rest of the electorate, including their own supporters. I have no idea who the original author is, but his proposal seems to be serious and is clearly condescending.

 

Incidentally, as bad as David Duke was, and still is, I don't think he ever did anything as brazen and criminal as the Tawana Brawley hoax that Al Sharpton perpetrated. At least Al Sharpton is entertaining.

[Twocubdad]

And dresses better.

[ScouterPaul]

With all due respect. George Bush comes a lot closer to the definition of Fascism in my Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary than any Democrat.

[Rooster7]

On a national level, the Republican Party would quickly disassociate itself and disavow a candidate like David Duke. If he pursued a Senate seat or a Presidential bid, his harshest critics would come from the right. However, when Al Sharpton steps up to the plate, the left embrace him like one of their own. Yes, Duke got a large portion of the vote, but that was a local election. Even the right has a few candidates in local offices that their not proud of - BUT at least they don't uplift them. The Democratic Party has no shame.(This message has been edited by Rooster7)

[le Voyageur]

Thanks for the correction KS, but I'll update to "penchant for neo-facisism".

 

Of a concern is a new term just emerging which is "generational war" meaning that this Administration's war on terrorism will be handed down to our children's children until the world is shaped in the image of the fascist doctrine of Pax Americana.

Another concern, once upon a time vistors to this country were afforded the same protection under the Constitution as a citizen. What is now happening at airports is the death of the 4th Admendment. Tyranny is at the gate....

 

[LovetoCamp]

Super, then our children's children's children may live in peace without the threat of muslim terrorists flying commercial aircraft filled with innocent passengers into skyscrapers filled with innocent civilians.

 

I've heard that until the wealth is redistributed into the middle east that terrorism will be ongoing. The Saudi's import workers and slaves to do their work both in their homes, compounds, and palaces and in their businesses. The only Saudis living in poverty our the Bedouin who choose to live in a tent with their goats. They don't need any more wealth. They have all the oil, so why do they want to kill Americans, any Americans?

 

It's a war created for those murderous muslim zealots who have gone overboard, and created by billionaire Bin Laden for his pleasure and sport.

 

To my brother (tall skinny Trail Pounder) who's been in Afghanistan and Iraq, keep your powder dry, your tomahawk sharp, Godspeed and Good Hunting!

[le Voyageur]

"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that evil in this world are to be cured by legisttion".

Thomas Reed

 

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

B. Franklin

 

"Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty."

Walt Whitman

 

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestiuous ses of Liberty."

Thomas Jefferson

 

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may prosterity forget that ye were my countrymen."

Samuel Adams

 

 

[KoreaScouter]

This reminds me of a freshman poly-sci class; thanks for taking me back to those undergrad days when idealism was unfettered by reality.

 

As long as we're pulling dictionaries off the bookshelf, those with short memories should pull an encyclopedia off the shelf, too, and read about the 12 years of FDR's administration before equating any other administration, Republican or Democrat, with fascist tendencies. Again, by the definition, it comes closest to the bulls-eye.

 

I've taken two transoceanic flights in the last three months, with another one this weekend. I've been scanned, poked, prodded, been searched, and had the TSA hand-search my checked luggage (hope those critters are wearing gloves, I routinely put my dirty workout clothes right on top). I'll gladly go through that and more if it will help prevent what all 280 million of us witnessed two years ago. The 4th Amendment guarantees you will be secure from unreasonable search and seizure. The key word is unreasonable. Reasonable people can disagree on what's reasonable and what isn't. But bear in mind, the 4th Amendment was a direct response to and result of Her Majesty's soldiers doing the first home invasions in American history, looking for any evidence that the occupant wasn't a Loyalist. The difference here is that the Massachusetts colonists didn't have a choice, but if you don't want to submit to airport security, don't go to the airport.

 

Tyrrany at the gate? No, the TSA's at the gate, but unfortunately for us, Mohammed Atta and 18 of his best buddies were there first. All things considered, I'll take the former.

 

KS

[NJCubScouter]

Rooster, madly spinning the facts, says:

 

However, when Al Sharpton steps up to the plate, the left embrace him like one of their own.

 

If that is true, the "left" (whoever exactly that is) has a strange way of embracing someone. Al Sharpton is at 5 percent in nationwide polls of Democrats. As a result he stands a good chance of getting NO delegates at the convention. I suspect he actually will get a few delegates from New York and maybe a few others from other urban areas. In all likelihood he will get less than 1 percent of the total delegates nationwide. That's an embrace?

 

The other possibility, of course, is that you are right, the "left" is embracing Sharpton... which would mean that approximately 5 percent of the Democratic Party is comprised of the "left." Which leaves 95 percent for... what? The middle? (I'm not saying I would break it down that way, but as usual, your simplistic and inaccurate labeling skews things right from the beginning. We have a "spectrum" in this country that includes both parties, rather than the simple categories that apparently suit your partisan purposes.)

[le Voyageur]

Since KS has referred to FDR...let's look at one of FDR's doings that has led us directly to this muddle....

 

Quoting from Curtis F. Jones, "The American Burden of Hegemony in the Middle East"

 

"The cornerstone of U.S. policy for the Middle East is the understanding reached between President Roosevelt and King Ibn Sa'ud on the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal on February 14, 1945.

Although Prime Minister Churchill was unaware and would have been appalled at the idea, the Quincy meeting initiated the transfer of the region from the British to the U.S. sphere of influence, an unruly and haphazard process that took three decades. Roosevelt's implicit extension of a security guarantee to the Saudi monarchy, in return for preferred access to Saudi oil, has been reaffirmed by every U.S. administration since then. During the ensuing decades, American policy has crystallized around three basic objectives:

(1) To preserve Western hegemony over the region whose strategic importance to the defense of Europe had been recognized sine the time of Napoleon.

(2) To ensure affordable access to Middle East oil.

(3) To ensure the security of the state of Israel.

In recent days, U.S. policy has also taken on as a fundamental aim the supp0ression of anti-American terrorism.

In 1945, a U.S. State Department memorandum described Saudi Arabia's oil resources as: "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in the world."

 

Quoting Harold Ickes, U.S. Pretroleum Administrator for War during World War II

 

"An honest and scrupulous man in the oil business is so rare as to rank as a museum piece."

 

My thoughts...we have an Adminstration so seeped in oil, who, to preserve their wealth and power will strip away our civil liberties...so, where can we find an honorable person, who as President, will enact a policy of seperation between oil and state and lead us out of this bloody mess.....

[scoutingagain]

"My thoughts...we have an Adminstration so seeped in oil, who, to preserve their wealth and power will strip away our civil liberties...so, where can we find an honorable person, who as President, will enact a policy of seperation between oil and state and lead us out of this bloody mess..... "

 

Le Voyager, why would you make such a statement? Why didn't our current President authorize something like more than (to be read as Dr. Evil) ONE MILLION DOLLARS to do research on hyrodgen as a possible source of energy?

 

SA

 

[ScouterPaul]

Amen

le Voyageur