Attention SENSIBLE Republicans - take back your party!
We know there are far more reasonable people in the Republican party than the few that are making a spectacle of the conservative right. Please do yourselves a favor and stand up to these extremists! The Republican party is not bad - but there are bad people who think they own it. They are not only making a joke out of our great country and our political system, they are also making a joke of all the good Americans who identify as Republicans.
Stand up to them and let them know that violence against politicians is NOT accepted.
Let them know that being obnoxious does not reflect well on the party.
Tell them you are tired of the childish name calling.
Make them understand that they do not represent most Republicans.
There are ways to make your point without making a scene. Politics are for ADULTS.
Write to them, call them, talk to them. Let them know that you are a proud Republican and you want them to straighten up. Make your point by not watching their shows or supporting their newspapers. Attend your Tea Party meetings and make yourself heard. You have a voice too!
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8 comments:
More Bottled Piety
This week’s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against health care. I’m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class — right-wing radio talk-show hosts, Glenn Beck idiots, and crass tea-party yokels are foaming at the mouth and dangerous to progressives. In contrast, write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse.
Socialism and totalitarianism are tough charges from the hard right, but they seem to me about as (or as not) over-the-top as Al Gore screaming “digital brown-shirts” or John Glenn comparing the opposition to Nazis. When 3,000 were murdered in Manhattan, and Michael Moore suggested Bin Laden had wrongly targeted a blue state, I don’t think that repulsive remark prevented liberal politicians from attending his anti-Bush film premiere. Yes, let us have a tough debate over the role of government and the individual, but spare us the melodrama, the bottled piety, and the wounded-fawn hurt.
Like it or not, between 2001 and 2008, the “progressive” community redefined what is acceptable and not acceptable in political and public discourse about their elected officials. Slurs like “Nazi” and “fascist” and “I hate” were no longer the old street-theater derangement of the 1960s, but were elevated to high-society novels, films, political journalism, and vein-bulging outbursts of our elites. If one were to take the word "Bush" and replace it with "Obama" in the work of a Nicholson Baker, or director Gabriel Range, or Garrison Keillor or Jonathan Chait, or in the rhetoic of a Gore or Moore, we would be presently in a national crisis, witnessing summits on the epidemic of "hate speech."
So here we are with the age-old problem that once one destroys decorum for the sake of short-term expediency, it is very hard to restore it in any credible fashion on grounds of principle when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. A modest suggestion: If the liberal community wishes to be more credible in its concern about contemporary extremist anti-administration rhetoric, then they might try the following: “Please, let us avoid extremism and do not fall into the same trap as Baker, Chait, Keillor, Gore, Moore, or Range when they either expressed open hatred toward their president, or speculated about the assassination of their president, or compared their president to a fascist. We must disown such extremism, past and present."
Your last sentence is 100% correct - for both parties.
However, I think it is important to illustrate the difference in our extremists.
Our extremists were yelling about:
- a preemptive strike, invasion and occupation of a country without due process or even factual information
- "dropping the ball" in Afghanistan at a critical time in that operation
- Using torture and other criminal acts outside the Geneva Convention
- Stripping Americans of their basic right to privacy through Illegal wiretapping without warrants.
- Government cover-ups of corruption (IE Valarie Plame scandal)
- Hiding the costs of both wars from the budgets
- etc.
Your Extremists are yelling about:
- Death Panels
- Government funded abortions
- Government takeover of health care (wasn't true even when the public option was in there)
- Socialism
- Birth certificates
- etc.
Our gripes were factual. Yours are not. Your extremists are very convincing and the public believes them. It is careless and dangerous for America.
Selective Outrage Over Stupak Threats
The MSM is melting down over the alleged (and deeply troubling, natch) wave of threats and violence directed at members of Congress who ignored the will of the people by passing Obamacare. This meme is pathetic. Virtually everyone who cuts a public political profile receives hateful correspondence and, yes, physical threats. (Even this lowly blogger has even received some nasty ones over the years). It's lamentable, and it's wrong.
Democrats have decided to exploit this reality by undertaking a transparent self-victimization campaign — and the media is enthusiastically along for the ride. Liberals are trying to engender sympathy to distract from their own unpopular actions. James Clyburn says Republicans who encouraged protesters over the weekend, "aided terrorism." Russ Carnahan is dishonestly claiming a casket was left on his front lawn, constituting a death threat. Republican Eric Cantor, whose campaign headquarters was recently shot up, has been forced to jump into the fray to remind everyone that nutters exist on both ends of the spectrum.
Now, the infamous Bart Stupak is getting in on the act. Stupak has released a series of offensive voicemails he received after abandoning his "principled" stand against public abortion funding in the health care bill. The contents of these messages are, indeed, venomous and totally inappropriate. The media is eagerly circulating the audio because it fuels their "look out, the crazy wingnuts are gettin' dangerous" narrative.
Curiously, Stupak chose not to make public any of the harassing calls and threats leveled against him waaayyy back when he was still seen as a major obstacle to Obamacare's passage. Even after one report emerged that Stupak was facing relentless intimidation from the Left, there were no breathless bulletins, no public hand-wringing, no front page headlines. Curiouser. Indeed, mere days before his epic cave-job, The Hill reported how Stupak's life had become a "living hell":
The fight has taken a toll on [Stupak's] wife, who has disconnected the phone in their home to avoid harassment.
“All the phones are unplugged at our house — tired of the obscene calls and threats. She won’t watch TV,” Stupak said during an hourlong interview with The Hill in his Rayburn office. “People saying they’re going to spit on you and all this. That’s just not fun.”
(Funny: I thought only Conservatives were spitters).
Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak, standing in the way of "change," is threatened by Leftists: MSM snoozer. Pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak, paving the way for a government power grab by abandoning his long-held position, is threatened by right-wingers: MSM national crisis.
Gee, you'd think the mainstream press overwhelmingly favors Obamacare, or something!
I might remind you that Republicans were carrying loaded visible weapons to Town Hall meetings. What you call a 'transparent self-victimization campaign', I call a 'threat campaign' and quite possibly 'terrorism'.
Oh baby, this is just too juicy for me to stay out of:
Denbec: You claim that you agree 100% with Hansen's last sentence ( "We must disown such extremism, past and present.")and yet you then proceed not to disown Leftwing extremism, but to defend it!
(I suppose I should be happy that at least you are now admitting that Leftwing extremism even exists at all, something that you have been very reluctant to admit to in some of our earlier discussions.)Maybe, what you should have said is that you agree that we must disown extremism about 50% of the time; I would suggest that based on the evidence of your own words, that would be a more accurate statement of your true belief.
But what really makes your posting so humorous is that you then attempt to list some of the allegedly non factual claims of Conservative extremists. Let's take a quick look at these:
1) "Death Panels"; a rhetorical term for health care rationing, which has been the invariable experience of every experiment in State run health care world wide. Plenty of non-"extremist" and respected analysts have predicted it to be highly likely headed our way now too. Sorry, no point for you.
2) "Government funded abortions" I'm not even sure what your point is here. It is an openly and often stated goal of a majority of Democrat lawmakers, so I can't imagine you are denying that. If your point is that a concern for the rights of the most defenseless members of the human race automatically qualifies you as an extremist, then all I can say is that the majority of the citizens of this country disagree with you (which, given the title of your blog, is perhaps what you did mean by it...sounds like that would make you the extremist on this issue).
3)Government take-over/Socialism: Again, plenty of non extremist (and highly intelligent and historically informed) commentators have made the case for this connection. If you can't even admit a reasonable form of that argument exists (even while disagreeing with it) then you are either stunningly stupid, incredibly naive, or just flat out dishonest. By the way, I don't think you are stupid (I'll go even further than that and say that I know that you are very intelligent).
4)Birthers: Hey! What do you know? Even a blind squirrel sometimes finds an acorn (joke). I'll give you that one, but come on, one out of four?
Is that really the best you can do?
Try harder next time.
It should be pointed out that in the single isolated incident of law abiding citizens carrying non-concealed firearms outside a town hall meeting in Arizona, they were acting in full compliance with all applicable laws and requirements. (by the way, why do you just assume they were Republicans? After all, there are plenty of Democrats who support our Constitutional right to bear arms...or at least that is what I am constantly told by them).
That being said, I personally would agree that it probably wasn't the wisest thing for them to have done. It's not something I would ever do, or encourage anyone else to do.
It also should be pointed out that during the recent controversy there has been only one reported incident of a gun actually having been fired, and that was a bullet fired through a Republican Congressman's office window. I'm sure you would agree that it would be grossly unfair of me to use that single incident to smear all Democrat partisan activists as "terrorists". I don't think it would be too much for me to expect the same level of fairness from you.
Andre - you disappoint me on both of these posts - I expect more from you. At least in prior posts you use some poll or statistic to support your claim but this time it is all speculation.
'invariable experience of every experiment in State run health care world wide' implies ours will follow in the exact same path - as if we can't learn from their mistakes.
'predicted it to be highly likely headed our way now too' Prediction is not fact.
You assert that Democrats are pro-abortion and expect taxpayers to cover it. Wrong on both counts. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. Abortion is never a choice easily made. But when circumstances force a woman to make that choice - the government must not put laws on her body. And before you go off on me on this topic please do a search on 'abortion' in my blog and you will see I am quite conservative on this topic.
I will give you that the argument for socialism is out there. It is only an argument and not supported by facts. What part of the word OPTION didn't they understand?
As for the guns at the town hall meetings - you know darn well they were republicans (why would a Democrat be at a Republican town hall meeting?) and there were more than one incident.
I could bury you with factual evidence to back up all of those claims...don't worry, I'm not going to...I've got better things to do.
For now I'll just correct you on one point of basic Civics101. You asked "Why would a Democrat be at a Republican town hall meeting?" (Do I really need to explain this to you?) A Congressman for any district may have a D or an R after his name, but, theoretically at least, he is the representative of all the citizens who reside in that district, and as such is answerable to all of them.
Living here is the Bay Area, all my Representatives are Democrats....but that doesn't stop me from going to their public meetings and attempting to hold them accountable for their votes on issues. It makes me question your grasp of the American political system that you would not know this.
Funny story: Back in the day, when I was a super -Leftie, I went to a debate among the Dem candidates to fill a suddenly vacant Congressional seat and one of the first time candidates in contention was a previously little known wealthy socialite named Nancy Pelosi. Among us Movement Leftie San Franciscan's we considered her just an upstart opportunist; the corrupt big downtown money machine candidate that no one in the district had ever heard of before...a carpet bagger. We all supported Harry Britt, the Gay Socialist City Supervisor ( he had succeeded to Harvey Milk's seat). During the Q&A I asked her a particularly tough question, she tried to bullshit her way through it, but I kept pressing (imagine that), I remembering saying to her at one point "So, you're just not going to answer the question then?" Oh man, if looks could kill! You should have seen the burning, furious, hatred in her eyes! So I can honestly say from personal experience, then and now, as both a Leftie and a Rightie, that Nancy's always been one mean spirited, humorlessness b****. (but always a fine looking woman, even with those crazy eyes)
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