Posted on 09/26/2004 9:53:27 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
A lot of liberals have already decided that the SwiftVets book has been "debunked" and don't want to talk about it (can't imagine why...)
Interestingly, I've seen similar statements regarding why Muslims hate America so much. Perhaps we won't have to travel far to get to the next Crusade.
Those whom I cannot respect are no longer my friends.
What we had for decades was a pathological party in power, aided and abetted by a pathological news media. Thank God, it finally clarified in the mass consciousness. I theorize that there were two spectacular meltdowns which intensely focused the attention of the American people:
1. Bill Clinton.
2. Dan Rather
From now on, these two people should be the standard metaphors for corrupt Government and fake media.
Yeah, I've had some pretty scary encounters myself.
I've got some guy [NYC, self-proclaimed "Marxist-Leninist"] on a site that's [at least ostensibly] completely apolitical, devoted to a subject that ought to be completely unpolitical, sending me private emails threatening to break my kneecaps.
On the afternoon of 9-11, I tried to show some compassion to a Muslim girl I knew [went by her apartment and tried to give her some flowers], and I was met with a rage and vitriol the likes of which I have never seen in another human being.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this phenomenon [the "left" & its unbridled infatuation with hatred], and it seems to me that this must be the sort of nihilistic, suicidal insanity that lead to the great socialist slaughters of the twentieth century [in Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, et al].
Definitely something to keep an eye on.
The hallmark of these people is hypocrisy, with the corollary of fantasy.There was a book written about these types in the '60s. The TRUE BELIEVER, by Eric Hoffer.
Usually the concepts that they a have a death grip on are totally opposite of the truth. Example: BUSH is going to re-instate th Draft. TRUTH: It was instigated by 14 Democrats. THEY tried to re-install the Draft, not G W Bush.
Frankly, I do not have time for these people anymore. If they want to spout their crap, O K, they have the First Amendment. BUT--do not ask me to pay for it, and do not ask me to pay to see, hear , or read writings, performances, or thoughts by these cretins.
Have you googled your FR name? You will be amazed if you haven't.
Sorry about your friend blowing up. Moral? Never go fishing with a school teacher.
Making a Dent in Liberal Disinformation: Don't Confuse Me With the Facts
Written by Lester Dent
Friday, September 24, 2004
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=9930
I have an online friend who recently retired as a professor of history at a prestigious international university. He is a scholar of impeccable credentials, the author of numerous highly-regarded and painstakingly-researched volumes of history. He is, unsurprisingly, quite liberal, and over the years we have debated a number of issues. As some may note from my style, I like to wade into facts and draw my conclusions from them (or at least buttress my opinions with some facts). Often he would say, ''I don’t have the command of the facts as you seem to on this issue, but I believe…'' He would then go on to state some superficial generalization about politics, such as ''As we all know today, there was no need to go to war in Iraq.''
Last week I sidestepped the issue we were currently debating, acknowledging that we would probably never see eye to eye on it. But I posed the following question to him: Why are you willing to form political opinions based upon a lack of facts that you would never accept as an historian? Here is a scholar that I respect immensely, and have no qualms about deferring to in matters relating to his expertise. Yet he fails to apply even a modicum of the same rigor to supporting his fundamental beliefs about politics, society, and economics.
When you survey the debate in the United States today, you see this repeated wherever liberals state their case. They parrot positions that don't stand up to the simplest factual test.
You hear about how the USA PATRIOT Act is behind military tribunals (not true) and has no judicial or legislative oversight (not true)
How ''One million African-Americans were denied the right to vote in 2000'' (not true)
How there were no ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda (not true, according to both the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Select Intelligence Committee)
How the ''Swift Boat Veterans for Truth'' have been ''completely discredited'' (not true--at best, some allegations have been disputed, and indeed the Democrats have been forced to admit on at least three major issues the Swift vets were correct and that Kerry… 'misspoke.'')
They point to job losses without acknowledging the massive impact of 9/11, the economic recession that started before Bush came into office, two wars, heightened terrorism precautions, and the accounting scandals from the 1990s that caused distrust when prosecuted under Bush
Can you imagine the Republicans in 1944 blasting FDR for the fact that women were being forced to leave their families to work in factories, or about the scarcity of automobile tires and gasoline, or the rationing of sugar? ''Are you better off today than you were in 1940?'' ''This President has overseen the destruction of the American Family--wrenching mothers from their children, fathers from their homes.'' ''This war in Europe is the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.'' Such political statements would have been rejected and condemned, because people were aware of the facts, of how their lives were intertwined with history.
I have a hard time understanding the ignorance of (or the refusal to acknowledge) facts that underpins liberal thought today. Liberals constantly call for more money for education when every statistic shows that money is not the answer (just look to Washington, D.C.’s schools and the $13,000 per child spent to achieve some of the nation’s lowest test scores). Libs talk down the economy when indices like home ownership, real income, and unemployment are better than the average in any of the past three decades. They claim that we are no safer today, ignoring the fact that we have not had the expected major terrorist attacks since 9/11/01 and the government has thwarted dozens of plots. They ignore the disclosure of Libyan WMD programs and the dismantling of the Pakistan nuclear proliferation cabal. They ignore how terrorist have struck even those countries who tried to block Coalition efforts in Iraq.
I have a theory that I am not willing to test--that people who exhibit such willful blindness to reality are simply making decisions based upon what they hear from the main stream media. While I admit that science would be served if I limited my news intake to the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and ABC/CBS/NBC, I simply cannot steel myself to do so. We have tremendous news assets available today, from the cable networks to talk radio to internet news sites to the pajamahadeen bloggers. There is no excuse for ignorance. Yes, it consumes time to get a decent grasp of facts, but we waste so much time on trivial pursuits (Survivor or The Apprentice, anyone?) that we really have no excuse.
Most liberal opinion that I hear or read is based upon ignorance of facts that gets repeated ad nauseum. There was a time when I attempted to debate liberals in the contentious newsgroup soc.culture.usa--but the silence was deafening. There was a lot of bomb throwing and chest-beating, but when I staked out factual positions and called for rebuttal, all that could be heard were crickets chirping. Satisfied to post their rants against the administration (or capitalism, or the United States in general), when challenged these intellectual girlymen slipped silently into the night.
The events of 9/11 thrust factual reality into the faces of many Americans (I among them). Many learned the lessons and stripped the liberal burkas from their minds, seeking to understand the world as it really is. Those who faced the facts became impatient with an intellectual orientation supplied by John Lennon’s ''Imagine.'' The world became uglier and more complicated, but the alternative was deadly--enough of us needed to come to grips with the world as it is or we would literally be buried. Too many slipped back into a lazy liberal mindset where ''should be'' replaces ''is.'' The Democratic Party is home to those who prefer to dismiss the inconvenient realities of life. Fortunately, there appears to be enough of us who think differently to protect them and their fantasies for the time being.
It is ironic that the liberals who dominate education in this country insulate themselves from the facts and seek to silence others who disagree (witness the attempts recently at U.C. Berkeley to prevent Michelle Malkin from speaking). My father would attribute the following philosophy to these folks:
''Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up.''
Tell me about it.
Isn't that an awful commentary on the times in which we live?
Doug,
hehehehehe... haahahahahahahah.... HOHOHOHOHOHO!!!!!!!!!! HHAHAHAHAHHAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
...and my parents... DEMOCRAT LIFERS!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE VOTING FOR BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They say the Democrats have lied to them and cheated the country into ruin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WWWOOOHHHHAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stand it anymore!!!!!!!!! My gut is going to split I am laughing so hard!!!!!!!!!!!
Red
Ironic, isn't it, that these are the same folks who, if given free reign, would make hate a "thought crime"?
"HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS,"
You'd better hope not that many or we're a lost cause.
Is that a satire, or a real transcript?
I'd love to get my hands on a copy of it, if it is real...
Cheers!
Holy cow, you're right. I've got two pretty common words as a screen name to be top of the google list.
As far as the topic of the thread goes, I've had two people I've been close to for years turn rabid. One went Michael Moore 'This is a war for oil, we target civilians, Junior wants make Daddy Bush proud, and Halliburton rich', the other went Pat Buchanan 'Imperial America should put all our troops on the border and stay out of all foriegn affairs'.
It's not so much the opinions that are disturbing, but the fanatical, sometimes wild eyed vehemence that accompanies it. They refuse to be reasoned with, and act like you're trying to hand them venemous snakes if you offer any proof. I also note from the exchanges posted that it's always them who initiates the break in relationships, which I've found to be the case. I didn't even know there was a problem in either case until they exploded on me.
Other way around.
They want to make (rational) thought a "hate crime".
"Crimethink" -- please sit down and actually, literally,
READ Orwell's 1984.
He was just 20 years too early for the modern DemocRAT.
We, three other brothers, wives, children ... were gathered Sunday morning at the resort breakfast buffet chatting.
I really can't remember how it came up (funny how whacko's turn ordinary conversation/filler chit-chat into something close to attempted murder), but I mentioned that we in America have no concept of the death culture of the murdering Muslims and their lack of basic humanity.
One of my brothers snapped and started ranting about all I ever do is talk politics, got up, moved to another table and fumed. Literally fumed.
I was aghast.
There is something happening today I recognise from my days as a 60's hippie/radical type. (yeah, I know ... to some that is contradictory ... ah well.)
Anyway, now, years later, I've had an opportunity to look over my past in a more objective mind-set and I conclude;
Mass psychosis took over planet Earth from '65 to maybe '75, '76.
Choose any 'developed' country during those years and you will find 15 - 25 yr. olds, dressed the same, smoking the same, talking the same, to wit: U.S. involvement in Viet Nam.
U.S., Germany, France, Japan, Netherlands, Italy, Greece ... hell, just about every nation had their hippies and anti-war protests ... every one of us in jeans, beads and long hair.
The same insanity is prevalent today.
My conclusion is, insanity is Satanic, we have a Godly man in the White House and Satan has once again stepped up his attack(s) on the common sense and Godly morality of man.
My two cent's worth.
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