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Following the "charity begins at home" thing, I guess it starts with me and my ability to listen to - without patronizing or lecturing, without letting myself get enraged by - opinions that seem so totally abhorrent and dead wrong. Remembering that those "others" feel equally appalled by my own opinions, I have to start by searching for places, however small, where we actually agree and try to build on that. That ain't easy - particularly when throwing a punch would be kind of satisfying in the moment and would relieve some of the stress most of us are feeling a lot of the time.
The forces that have worked to divide us into fearful fractions have done an excellent job, but we've let them by indulging in our own self-righteousness. The only thing that seems to put that on hold for a while is some major calamitiy. We could wait for another one, or take on a deeply personal and difficult task.
And how to fight for what is right, but at the same time suspend self-righteousness?
Besides embracing "the other side", we also need to cut our leaders some slack. We make it very difficult for them to seek compromise, because we smack them down the minute they "betray" any of our cherished ideals. If they seek a less-than-perfect solution - which compromise usually is - then we blame them for their failures. Our leaders are deeply, deeply flawed - they're human. But at least they stepped up. Most of the time, they find themselves with both hands tied behind their backs by the gridlock we, the voters, impose upon them - and we rail on them for their inability to act. I'm not advocating letting them run wild and unchecked, but we need to drop our idealistic purity and move toward compromise. We need to reward "better" and "good enough" sometimes.
Ronald Browstein wrote a fascinating book called "The Second Civil War - How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America". It's worth a read. I agree that we are already in the middle of a civil war - the question is whether it will move from head-space to meat-space.
Sister Palin is their new queen.
And she will not be backing down. Rather, she'll continue to work the madness, culminating in her nomination as the GOP's 2012 Pres candidate.
-- stan
if reminded ! His wife is very sensible they have kids I don't think they want a revolution ! Bush and the gang
may have even starved the clueless into realizing a change is necessary ! Certain media figures have passed the line of an acceptable standard's in reporting !
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008...
Interesting, no?
Sarah Palin is fun to watch on TV. Fox News loves Palin. If Palin was a democrat, Fox "reporters" would be tearing her apart. But she plays for their team, so they don't. What does that tell you about those "reporters"?
What makes her compelling to Fox and to talk radio is not her policies, or opinions, or her reasoning (or lack thereof). Rather she keeps people tuned in. And when you don't change the channel, you listen to the advertising. And if you like Sarah Palin, maybe you'll buy those products too. That's sounds like good TV for FOX's revenue stream.
Like George Bush, Palin is a religious conservative. And religion, as a general rule, is opposed to questioning, especially thoughtful questioning. History has demonstrated this time and time again. So far, that has been the republican line from the president down to the candidates, and to the people. Don't question us.
One thing religions, like television, must do is keep people interested. Otherwise, people will invest their time and money doing something else.... something they think is more worthwhile or interesting. Political parties are not that much different, except that most of the time, the people who care about politics are the the thoughtful people.
Would Buckley's show ever have made it on Fox News? No, of course not. It requires to much thinking for advertising based television. And that is really where we are at. Thoughtful, intelligent, Republican figures don't show up on TV, especially republican oriented TV. And when they do, they speak in sound bites.
I saw a great interview on Charlie Rose of Justice Scalia. I was very impressed with his arguments and reasoning. But Fox News doesn't put people like that on TV. Instead the pundits or "reporters" edit it down to sound bites and then push the sound bite out for as many news cycles as it has legs. For instance, Sarah Palin repeated the "states rights" sound bite in her interview with Katie Couric, without understanding it's implications (medical marijuana for instance).
But that is how to do modern entertainment news, sound bites and a 24 hour news cycle. As soon as Britney Spears stops being interesting, we don't hear about Britney Spears. As soon as John McCain or Sarah Palin stop being exciting, we won't hear about them either. Palin is exciting TV, until she is asked more complex questions, and then it's dead air. That isn't exciting TV which means, no interviews for Palin.
But those rallies, that's good TV. Have you watched them? Of course you have. I think if she starts putting her fist in the air and saying "seig heil"...oops, I mean "country first" they will get a lot of people watching and probably even ratchet up their bases energy. Do you think they will go that far?
Do republicans really have anything to lose? Does Palin have anything to lose by raising her fist and putting "Country First"? Of course not., it get's her more exposure on TV.
The Republican Party has been on a long slide into a party that pursues power for it's own sake. The end of that slide looks like what? If history is any guide, fascism does make for exciting TV and radio.
Is it possible to stop anyone from doing their worst? No, it's not. The Republican party is imploding.
The closer they get to that end, the worse they are going to act.
It makes a great opportunity for a new party to form, and maybe, just maybe, we could be entering a post-party phase.
And if you don't believe me that the Republican party pursues power for it's own sake, consider the last 8 to 10 years. the attacks on Clinton were petty and damaging to the country and were only undertaken because Clinton was a democrat. The Republican party would not have attacked their own this way. But the 6 years of solid Republican government control were the same 6 years that lead to rising debt (fiscally reckless), bigger and more intrusive government, a weakening of our constitutional safeguards, liberal financial deregulation, ardent militarism, arbitrary and interventionist foreign actions, and abandonment of the basic ideas of national defense (eg Katrina - not all threats come from nations).
Each of the Republican responses listed above has not been a conservative approach to the underlying problem. The conservative approach would actually produce very different results. Less, debt, smaller and less intrusive government, stronger national defense, but not militarism, less foreign involvement, an adherence to constitutional principles of the separation of powers, and a desire for a limited government, and thus a limited executive. Not Republican positions at all.
http://thepage.time.com/2008/10/10/stop-the-pre...
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/mcca...
THE SITUATION HAS CHANGED.
Meanwhile, what is this will we have civil war if Obama's elected stuff?
We've been having a civil war practically since this country was founded. Once, it became a geographical armed conflict with regular armies and stuff, but we've been assassinating, bombing, and otherwise flaming each other more or less along the same fault lines since day one. Like I mentioned a week or so ago, I see the '60's as a slow motion asymmetric warfare, low-intensity conflict along civil war fault lines, mostly, right down to draft riots and bombings of abolitionists homes and churches.
The fault lines are always there. But as us damn yankees and our values have won the economic war, the culture war has become the rallying point for the right, who thought that winning the political war was all they had to do. They won that 30 years ago, with Reagan, and then the rest of it just--- didn't happen, and the longer they've held political power, the more ground they've lost culturally and economically. Figure they'd have realized something was wrong with the battle plan long ago, and that I think is the driving force behind the rage: They are finally starting to realize they are not the majority, and that is rocking their world.
The right is not fighting a culture war. The right and the left are fighting a culture war.
The thing that gets me hung up is that if I come in here with my political non-euclidianism that I use in face to face conversations, I'll end up taking 10000 words just explaining my view of the landscape.
I actually see a lot more in common between certain people on the right and certain people on the left, and my own ideas straddle these lines without degenerating into centrism. I like equal rights, equal opportunity, and reasonable regulation of firearms, but I still think the 2nd amendment does guarentee private ownership of whatever a typical infantryman would be packing, however inconvenient that might be to civil society (I think requiring insurance might solve a lot of disputes in that area better than prohibition does), but I can't stand the nra.
I suppose that is why I so often invoke places like Vermont as fonts of political wisdom. They manage to build coalitions there that just completely transcend historic political alignments: libertarian farmers alongside socialist school teachers and liberal web authors. Ah, me. We need new words for our politics.
I think the way recent tragedies and wars have been exploited by the right has made it pretty clear that this country will never unite in any meaningful fashion--most people in America are still even today looking for a chance to exploit confusion and disaster to advance their narrow interests--so the financial crisis will just have to run its course. In the meantime, Obama should put his agenda--the one people are ready to vote for--first.
For now liberals should focus on breaking the back of the conservative movement, and getting 60 Democratic senators would be a start.
"But there's a lot of concern, expressed openly, that there will be violence if Obama wins -- that somehow the Republicans will not feel that an African-American, even if he wins the Electoral College, is a legitimate President."
Republicans would not FEEL that way!
Dan
Http://www.needknives.com
To somehow think any racial bias is a Republican or Democrat thing is off the mark. There are racists in both parties who won't support Obama and that's reprehensible. Regardless of who wins, they will be my president.
If you believe that it could never happen here, we have too many checks and balances… Well just remember… a super majority in congress and the senate makes it very easy for the controlling party to re-write and amend any part of the constitution with just a mere 60 votes in the senate and the stroke of a pen by the president of the united states. With that, all the freedoms and tolerances that you hold dear to your heart can be wiped away.
However, at least in my experience the most vocal of those hardliners can be found on the left.
Their rhetoric is particularly insidious because it stands against EVERYTHING this country stands for. Everything our forefathers fought and sacrificed for. Everything that is in our Constitution.
McCain more accurately represents what the Founding Fathers intended.
Obama is on record of wanting a supermajority in Congress AND a Dem President. Appalling statement, especially for someone who claims to have taught Constitutional Law. Has he even READ the document? Is he aware that the Presidential Oath of Office requires him to uphold it? He is no better than Bush.
If Obama should win, I will not get behind him. To do so would violate everything I believe in. I will do nothing to aid him. I will NEVER call him President (with his radical left beliefs: We are our brother's keeper? That is not an American value, he is wholly unfit for the office).
Thankfully, I share this opinion with many other American.
I don't think the issues here are as racial as many would like to dismiss, but also have risen over fear of losing what makes America unlike Europe and other socialistic countries....and the building tension over the actual validity of the election process (which includes the shameful media coverage).
We never achieve anything if it isn't achieved honestly. Whole states could just refuse to pay into a tax program they feel was passed in an invalid election. That's a real possibiltiy in this climate. Once the details of corruption are uncovered.... those who supported Obama will just as swiftly separate themselves from the scandal.
And the racial factor which worries many is that a majority of those voting for Obama are doing so out of racial allegiance rather than allegiance to the best leadership for the whole country.
As a pastor I am urging my people to remember that believers on both sides of the isles are actually citizens of God's Kingdom which is still very stable. This is where we can join together.
There are five kinds of voters in this election. The first group is racially motivated, such as the majority of black Obama supporters and the supreme whites for McCain. The second group consists of Harvard clans and the left liberals and intellectuals. This group not only supports Obama but also is trying their best to influence other voters. The third group is the conservative McCain supporters, including the traditional GOP cores. Very little can sway their votes. The fourth group consists of young and new voters. Obama has an edge over McCain in this group. Young voters are attracted to Obama mainly by his more intellectual but calculated speeches and talks. McCain needs to convince this group that substance is more important than talks. The last group is the uncertain group, consisting of independents and discouraged DEM and GOP voters. They are fed up with the Bush presidency on one hand, and distrust Obama on the other. They worry about the war and the future of the nation. They worry about their pocketbooks. They wonder if McCain represents another term of Bush administration. If this group tips heavily to one candidate, he will be the next president. I belong to this group. I will examine the following important factors carefully. The candidate who gives the better answers will get my vote.
The most important factor is the character. McCain is well known and well respected. However, he seems too stubborn and too temperamental. Does this personality matter? Obama was relatively unknown before he ran for president. However, a person can be judged by his previous actions and by the people he has been associated with. Can I ignore Obama’s previous cocaine usage and smoking habit? Should I care about his association with those questionable figures such as Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour, "Tony" Rezko, and the organization ACORN? I am particularly concerned that Obama might become the leader of an ACORN-like social movement.
Both candidate had very little to do with the economy mess we are in. Any attempt to blame the other should be ignored. Because the situation is too complicated and fast changing, can either candidate get us out of this mess? The only thing I can use to judge is candidates’ governing philosophies and experiences. Obama seems to represent the left end of the Democratic philosophy, that is big government and expanded social programs, while McCain promises to restore the Republican ideal of smaller government and capitalism. As senator, McCain has not requested for earmarks, while Obama ($ 1 Billion) did. Thus, McCain seems to be a better bet on fighting against big federal spending.
The war and national security is another confusing area. Obama did not have experiences in this area and he does not know how to end the war. I do not believe that he has better judgments either. McCain seems to have a better strategy to end the war. However, if a candidate does not believe that Iraq war was a wrong war, and our economy has deteriorated because of this war, he should not be elected. Could McCain be so stupid on this issue?
I am an American - I believe that govenrment derives it's "just power by consent of the governed". i'm not interested in forcing my beliefs on any one and I will fight to the death anyone who tries to impose theirs on me.
There are "two Americas" and they don't like or trust each other and "a house divided against itself cannot stand". I have spent the last 18 years dreading a civil war, and now I'm almost looking forward to it. I can see a place beyond where I'm free to live my own way without dreading each election and which of my liberties are going to assaulted this week.
I pray this national divorce will be an amicable one in which the two sides split the community property and agree never to speak to each other again, but I don't have much hope that this will be.
If you are on the left side of the aisle, I would say go in peace and I hope your way works out well for you.