Posted on 09/13/2007 2:56:07 PM PDT by SnakeDoctor
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3515875
** This is a post I discovered over at DU, and I thought my fellow FreeRepublicans might want to give it a read. I hope the moderators will allow this to remain in the main forum.
Since this is a post from DU directed specifically at Freepers, and not an attack post from DU - I hope JimRob will let it stand so that we conservatives may have the opportunity to respond. If this is not the case, I apologize for posting it, and would certianly not object to its removal.
However, since DU material is not allowed to be linked officially, I have posted a copy of the location at the top of this post. **
Warning, this may get wordy.
I recently had a pretty poignant and bittersweet experience that I wanted to address and share with all of you. I hope at least one person reading this comes away with something valuable from it.
Earlier this summer, my close friend Jennifer and I made plans to visit Washington state, and stay with an old childhood friend of hers, Jon. I had never met this friend of hers, but I knew from what she had told me that he is a lifelong Republican, and a 16+ year member of the Marine Corps, who has been to Iraq twice. Skeptical, I said "I don't want to spend my whole weekend on the defense, arguing with your conservative friend. If he's an asshole to me, I'm not going to just take it, I'll throw back."
(Aside: Though he and I had never met, she had told both of us quite a bit about the other, and we both knew full well prior to meeting that we were diametric political opposites.)
She, a lifelong Democrat who has been best friends with this guy since they were grade school, said "No, I've already talked to him about that, and there will be no political rants. We're all just going to have a good time. He's really a nice guy - I know that sounds odd, but he totally is."
Reluctantly, I agreed, still worried that the whole trip would be one long disaster.
When he picked us up at the ferry terminal, he was incredibly polite and accommodating, and I sensed an almost palpable effort on his part to do NOTHING that would imply that he was even attempting to broach any subject that MIGHT cause friction. I would have almost preferred that he just fly into a Limbaugh like rant until he combusted, rather than struggle silently to be as neutral as possible. He looked like he was in pain. I knew that we were both dying to "go there" re: The War.
Once back at the house, we all started to relax and talk about all manner of things, none of which were controversial in the least.
A few hours into the visit, however, I couldn't take it anymore.
I broke "the pact."
My friend went downstairs to make a phone call, and I turned to the guy and said, very cautiously, "I know we don't exactly, er, see eye to eye on many things, but I understand you've spent 16 years in uniform."
He gulped audibly and his eyes darted nervously toward the stairs to see if Jennifer might overhear and bust us cold.
"Um, yeah, I enlisted after high school." He borderline whispered.
"Well, personal politics aside, I do thank you for your service. My dad is an Air Force veteran, and I do admire the bravery of those who choose to serve," I said.
I thought he was going to crap himself. He stared for a moment, flabbergasted, and said "Thank you. My dad was in the service too. I have some old pictures of him in uniform, it's hard to tell us apart - well, except his pictures are dog-eared and black and white." He laughed as he got up to go into the office, and then returned with some old framed photos of his dad, who sure enough was a dead ringer for his son.
The ice was broken, and I said "I really want to know about Iraq, and what you experienced over there. There's a lot of debate between the political parties, most of it distorted and sensationalized by the mass media, but I honestly don't know anyone who has actually served in Iraq. Not a single person who can tell me face to face what they actually SAW, minus the TV spin."
Keeping in mind that I could possibly be given a very biased view of the war from this guy, I sat down and listened, prepared to have to do some serious filtering. I was actually really surprised by the sincerity of his response.
First off, I was reminded that he enlisted in the service in the summer of 1991, after the first Gulf War was coming to a close. Fueled by a genuine desire to serve, he was at that time, totally unaware, as we all were, what the future held regarding Iraq. When he got called up to go to the Middle East this time around, he was simply fulfilling his duty, regardless of how he felt about the present conflict.
Expecting a lot of glorifying of Bush's policies, and a "hard sell" on how great the war was going, I was duly shocked to hear him talk very candidly about how nice the Iraqi civilians were that he met, how he had befriended many of them, and missed them now that he was back in the states. He spoke of how sad it was that he, and many others fighting over there had a genuine desire to do some good, but had no idea how any good could possibly come of all of this now, that things had gotten so ugly, so muddled, and so out of control. He seemed, dare I say, baffled...perhaps because once he got to Iraq, he wasn't sure WHAT the mission was supposed to be after a while. He did not bash any particular policy, or politician, just bemoaned the fact that the concept of war used to be different back when his dad served. Back then, the message was clear, the mission was carved in stone, and hopefully, the cause was just. He brought up WWII and how nobody could ever possibly look at that conflict and say, "What were we doing there?" He lamented the fact that sending a bunch of troops into Iraq would not stop terrorism. Terrorist activity could happen everywhere, and anywhere, and small factions of evildoers were scattered all over the planet, not concentrated in Iraq. The threat was scattered, occult, and could not be fought in one place. It would take global cooperation, diplomacy, lot of foreign policy wonks putting their heads together to find a solution - not what's going on now.
It would take pages of text to try to reiterate everything we talked about, but it was surprising what a civil conversation two people from opposite sides of the fence could actually have when there were no pundits to stir the fire, no propaganda to distort the conversation, no anger to distract from the message - just two people, sitting on a staircase, looking at old photos of a smiling young soldier, and respecting one another's common humanity, rather than forgetting it in place of hard-line party affiliation. Finally, Jennifer did bust us having this discussion, but we assured her, we were being civil.
If only more of this could go on, in more households, with more people.
In a nutshell, he and I talked about a lot of things, and chuckled over some of the stereotypes that exist vilifying both parties. We were shocked to learn that while I consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal, and he a Conservative, that we actually had a lot more in common than we had ever imagined we might.
The main gist of this story - and yes...I'm getting to it....
...is that I want to share with all of you what I said to him in response - my take.
I asked him not to allow himself to be distracted by the talking heads on the news stations that tell him how to think, and consider themselves experts on the viewpoints of Democrats, and what motivates us. There's big business in distorting the truth, and fanning the flames, and the mass media as well as the politicians are REALLY good at doing just that. They ABHOR the thought of Liberals and Conservatives sitting down together and actually talking to each other. Because then we might realize that not everyone who is different from us is "the enemy."
Think about it. Those in power love to pit us against one another. They get great pleasure out of making sure we are pissed off at one another, afraid of each other, unable to trust one another, and unable to speak to one another. Envision a little kid trying to play one parent against one another. "Mom said I could do this." "Dad said I could do that." The kid reaps twice the rewards until the two parents get together and both realize neither said any such thing. Then the kid's in deep shit.
Political operatives are really good at this. By convincing the masses that the other side wants to "corrupt the youth" "destroy the institution of marriage" "kill precious babies" "rape the environment" "piss away your tax dollars" "take away your guns" "strip you of your civil rights" "spy on you" "nuke you" "let the terrorists win" etc. they are driving people to the ballot boxes in droves to vote against what they have been made to fear. "The other side is a bogey-man that must be stopped."
Politically neutral, at-ease people who do not feel threatened aren't as likely to show up on election day as pissed off, scared, angry people who are afraid of losing something. Those people show up, alright. And vote, they do. Often times they vote without even realizing that the real issues - the ones we ought to be worried about - were not even broached by the candidates. The voters were fed a lot of sensationalist rhetoric meant to scare them, but hardly any real substance or policy matters were touched upon. But still, the "fear voting" continues, and the open honest dialog never begins.
Don't get me wrong - I'm no Pollyanna, I KNOW there are unreasonable, corrupt, evil people out there. Some of the negative things we hear about others is sadly going to be true. But are we ALL really as bad as others would paint us to be? Or might we be surprised to learn that we've been sold a bill of goods somewhere along the line, in order to cater to the aspirations, calculations, and greed of others?
I asked this Republican soldier to remember his conversation with me next time Ann Coulter or Michael Savage told him that ALL Democrats were unreasonable and evil and bad. I promised him I'd do the same when I was told something similar on my end. (I had to be fair!)
What I really want to get across to any lurking Repubs is this:
When a Democrat stands up and says "I do not support this war" it is NOT because we "hate the troops" or "want the terrorists to win". I doubt ANY Democrat feels that way - not a single one. If they do, I can comfortably say they're an idiot.
Nobody in the Democratic party wants terrorists to win anything. We want an end to this war, because we are damn tired of all the death, all the misery, all the conflict. We "support the troops" in the sense that we are sick of seeing them coming home in caskets. We are weary, appalled at the loss of American lives with no end in sight. We are tired of the death of Iraqi civilians none of whom had ANYTHING to do with the pissing contest between Saddam Hussein and the Bush family, or the incestuous relationship between American politicians and Middle Eastern oil. Our idea of supporting the troops is being "pro-life" in the global sense of the word - pro-life for all, including our soldiers, and the civilians who are dying in endemic numbers - and for what? When we say "bring the troops home now" we mean return our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters to us, AND TO YOU, alive, and in one piece.
We protest the war, not because we feel that we should let the evildoers win out, but because we sincerely believe, after much thought and consideration that staying in Iraq is NOT what will bring order to this world. It won't stomp out terrorism, it won't improve global relations, it's just not working. We tried, we've been there for four years, it's not working. We don't say this to insult or belittle those who are trying to fight the good fight. We say it because this is what the numbers are telling us. Not the pundits, not the politicians, not the reporters. The cold hard numbers of how many have died in this conflict.
We say it because we care about human life.
Every time we turn on the news and hear that more American soldiers have perished in the Middle East, it is like a part of us dies. We all collectively mourn the losses, no matter where we are on the political spectrum. When we see the pictures of those lost, the faces of our brave men and women who served and died in combat, we as Democrats, mourn them with every fiber of our being, whether those soldiers were Democrats or Republicans.
We don't ask if anyone knows the affiliation of the dead before we decide whether or not we care. We do care, trust me.
When we say "bring them home alive and soon" we mean your loved ones too. For no other reason other than we are tired of the loss of human life. There's no other motivating factor. No terrorist sympathizing, no political grandstanding, no desire to "stick it to Bush."
Politics aside, we just want this to end. For everyone's sake.
Thank you.
I'm not sure what to make of it, personally. There is a somewhat conciliatory tone - but the entire post still contains the moral superiority of a DUer that thinks he's right.
What do you think?
Hemorrhage
Can’t spell DUMB without DU.
“Nobody in the Democratic party wants terrorists to win anything.”
Crap.
I’m sure they have gotten over their mild brush with sanity by now.
Sounds like a Bouncy story to me.
I believe the proper term is "FReeper"...as you might know, Republican and FReeper aren't necessarily equivalent.
The poster seems to be one of the more reasonable DUers ... which, I suppose, isn’t saying much.
He is one of the few that appears to be able to admit that conservatives don’t want to: “corrupt the youth”, “rape the environment”, “piss away your tax dollars”, “strip you of your civil rights”, “spy on you”, “nuke you”, etc.
Its a start.
H
Yeah and Cindy Sheehan dreams about going back in time to smother george Bush in his crib, while Sue Niederer dreams about shooting George Bush in the groin.
Cindy's dream is described in her book, Niederer's in a magazine interview.
It's all bullshit from the libs.
Neither are “Republican” and “conservative”.
I believe the proper response to that is
LOUSY FREEPER TROLL!
Care about human life? Ha, how about they start caring about babies being murdered. Then I’d take that claim seriously.
They only care about anyone getting in their way of having a good time.
>> I believe the proper term is “FReeper”...as you might know, Republican and FReeper aren’t necessarily equivalent.
Perhaps. I think FreeRepublican just rolls off the tounge better than Freeper ... but I did not intend to imply any affiliation with the Republican Party.
To each his own.
H
Question for this young, civil liberal:
Why are the vast majority of military personnel conservative? Is it that the military attracts conservatives, or is it that what is learned in the military conservative principles?
Answer those questions and you will understand a lot more about why your “support” of the troops amounts to slapping them in the face.
Why would we do that for a newbie? Moved to the bloggers forum.
DUmmies make up stories all the time. They seem to compete to see who can write the longest most boring story. What else do they have to do living in their parents basements. Nobody remembers “conversations” like the Dummies.
As I've said elsewhere, Washington politics is a show for the rubes.
It's all about stealing your tax dollars. If you're distracted by "The Show", it's like stealing candy from a STUPID baby...
Probably not though.
Sounds to me that he was shocked that he could have a conversation with someone on the other end of the political spectrum. It appears that he is used to railroading the conversation and taking EXTREME offense when someone doesn’t agree with him 100%. He was placed in a situation where he was forced to be civil and that is what he received.
My guess is that this is the 1st time he’s actually shown any respect for a person on the other side of a political argument.
ummm.....yeah.....ummm.........so, why do they keep trying to take away our guns, ruin the institution of marriage, dumb down our schools, tax us into the ground, etc....???
Sorry, actions speak louder than words...and while this one isn’t as deranged as most, he is still aligned on the wrong side of the political spectrum, as they all are.
I remember conversations I had from years ago, although not always word-for-word. This story just sounds made up though.
How do you know it’s a “he”? This person posting on DU speaks volumes - this is no peaceful moderate. And why did he/she feel the need to say that he/she hopes that a soldier from either political persuasion comes home alive? I think the whole story was made up to make Dem/Libs look reasonable. We saw how reasonable they are after the NYT Moveon ad against General Petraeus.
When they're not playing Dungeons and Dragons or working on a costume for a Star Trek convention.
Yeah, DUmmies just can’t keep from talking politics - it’s what they live for, they’re complete zombies otherwise.
“Every time we turn on the news and hear that more American soldiers have perished in the Middle East, it is like a part of us dies.”
Sounds kind of jingoistic. The left usually doesn’t say one American life is worth 1000 lousy foreigners’ lives.
“When we say “bring them home alive and soon” we mean your loved ones too. For no other reason other than we are tired of the loss of human life. There’s no other motivating factor. No terrorist sympathizing, no political grandstanding, no desire to “stick it to Bush.””
No, I don’t buy this either. If they were tired of the loss of human life, they would acknowledge that there’s going to be a lot more loss of human life if we pull out before the job is done and therefore is a bad idea. Oh, unless “human life” is limited in definition to “American life” and you don’t consider American lives lost to emboldened terrorists enjoying safe haven in an American-free Iraq.
Yeah, this sounds like a lefty being completely honest...
I have to agree with the guy in that I want the conflict to end as well. I don’t want to see one more Marine, Soldier, Sailor or Airman die.
But at the same time we went in there. We, with the goal of getting rid of Saddam, helped to create this current climate.
We cannot now leave the Iraqis with no means of self defense. As they step up to the plate and take on more and more responsibility for their own security, then I want to see more and more of our troops coming home ALIVE and in one piece.
Then I want to see them put on the border to protect this nation from invasion.
Or better yet, storm Washington DC so that they CAN take over the border and protect this nation from invasion.
That, in my honest opinion, is the only way we will ever close the damned borders.
>> Yeah and Cindy Sheehan dreams about going back in time to smother george Bush in his crib, while Sue Niederer dreams about shooting George Bush in the groin. Cindy’s dream is described in her book, Niederer’s in a magazine interview.
I don’t believe for a second that Niderer or Sheehan cares a lick about human life. However, I have often wondered if, in our zeal to demonstrate the obvious absurdity of liberalism, we confuse the opinions of liberal fanatics like Sheehan (and most of the nuts at DU) with the opinions of more mainstream liberals.
I certainly do not think mainstream liberals are as detestable as Sheehan ... and I do not believe they share her disdain for human life. I believe they are simply well-intentioned, but misguided, people who may not have the stomach for the war we were thrust into on 9-11.
H
Too late. Some Democrat politicians already admitted it would not be good for them politically if there is success in Iraq.
Cindy Sheehan offered to run her son over with the family car to keep him from going to war in Iraq. It wasn’t about saving his life, it was about stopped him from waging war.
Moderator ... I am not a newbie. I simply have a new handle. My previous handle was “ThePatriot1776”, and I have been a member since September of 1998.
H
Caught that one myself. It’s false. The Democrats want to lose so bad they’ll lie about anything ~ no reconciliation is possible.
He’s tombstoned for sure.
It’s an okay post. But I guess whenever I read something like this, I’m surprised to realize that there are places where democrats and republicans - or moreso “liberals and conservatives” - simply cannot tolerate each other or live amongst each other. It surprises me because I know that dynamic exists. I know there are people on DU who fit that bill, and honestly, I fully realize there are some here at freeperland who bristle at the thought of a Democrat in their home.
It seems so foreign to me because I live in Austin, and let me tell you, if I couldn’t co-exist with liberals to some extent, I’d never be able to live here or enjoy a normal life. I have friends who are Dems, libertarians.. and then friends who are more conservative than me.. and we argue, we bicker, get mad at each other.
It’s all serious stuff, and I don’t discount it - we are talking about people’s values here.. to some degree their character, but I’m also not so smug as to think I have the whole world figured out and that I have nothing left to learn from anybody. We have politics but at the end of the day we’re all Americans and we all still have to live with one another. Or, we just cut off from segments of society...and that’s no life for me.
So, if this kid (he/she seems like they might be young) learned not to be so stodgy in their views, and to keep an open mind about meeting someone who he/she thought so “diametrically opposed” as to not even be able to have a reasonable conversation with them.. .then hey, better late than never. We all have to grow up sometime.
And hopefully he/she gained just a little more respect for our men and women in uniform. Lord knows they deserve it - from everyone.
jmho.
>> He’s tombstoned for sure.
Actually - he’s been promoted to the front page of DU. That’s the only reason I came upon the thing (as I can’t really tolerate an extended stay at DU).
H
No doubt he supports abortion on demand.
Hmmmmm. to the noob poster and to #29
They just put him there to kick him around for a while.
All I can say to this DUmmie is that if you ignore your rights and freedom, and not fight for them, they will just go away. All of us, and I mean everyone wishes that the death and killing would stop. But that is us, not the terrorist, they thrive on killing and death. We live and fight for life, they live and fight for death. We can not give them the luxury of retreat, for if we do, they will attack ten fold as retreat is a sign of weakness. So the fact remains, we must continue to kill those that wish to kill us, unfortunatley innocents will be killed. 3000 innocents were killed 6 years ago, I am sure the Jihadist wish it had been 30, 000.
Prepare for your tombstoning, bub - you’ve never read any of your fellow DUmmies’ posts, that much is obvious.
>> Hmmmmm. to the noob poster and to #29
Again - I am not a “noob”. I have a new handle ... I was previously “ThePatriot1776” and have been a member since September of 1998.
My thought that mainstream liberals are not necessarily as detestable as Cindy Sheehan is simply from personal experience. I personally know several liberals who are reasonable people who think with their hearts rather than their heads.
They’re wrong ... but certainly notas detestable or anti-American as the caricatures on DU.
H
You could show them ANSWER's flyer titled, "Counter-Revolution & Resistance in Iraq" which states "The anti-war movement here and around the world must give its unconditional support to the Iraqi anti-colonial resistance" and they'd still go.
Unconditional support means they support the "Iraqi resistance" when they kill American troops. DU is full of traitors that will march with ANSWER.
Again, not one DU puke will distance themselves from ANSWER and their policy of unconditional support of those killing our soldiers.
It’s not just that they remember conversations so well it’s that they can also tell you what every expression means on someones face. Like sheepish, shocked, surprised, contrite, etc. It’s always like they’re writing a novel.
1. You appear to either be growing up or be one of the more moderates at DU.
2. If you are so pro bringing the troops home, then start with the ones that are in Kosovo. That has been going on for a lot longer time period that Iraq, with little or no resolution. Yet you don’t hear a whimper out the Democrats or anyones else that is against the Iraq war demand that they be brought home.
BWAAHAAAAA!!!
Priceless.
Just think, had they seen you in your famous red devil costume?
...they'd have declared you a deity.
Good point
That didn’t take long
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