Posted on 03/13/2003 9:41:15 PM PST by ConservativeMan55
This entry won't deal with my professor but with an argument I had with a girl on the bus ride home. She was a hardcore liberal.
It got started because I was telling her about my Business Law professor who is a hardcore liberal. She said she would probably agree with him.
Her
We can't just go around the world forcing our views on everybody else! I'm so sick of us getting involved in every conflict! Everybody in America is against this war, and George Bush doesn't have a chance in hell of getting re-elected.
Me
What do you mean he doesn't have a chance in hell of being re-elected? There is a ton of support for this war. If you don't think Bush will be re-elected, then who do you suppose is going to beat him?
Her
I don't know man, but I think they are going to find somebody soon...I hope. Bush is on a one man crusade, and I hate it when people go on one man crusades.
Me
Bush will be re-elected overwhelmingly. This war will be short, and the economy will rebound. By the way do you know who is the front runner for the Democratic Nomination? Its Al Sharpton! Do you think Al Sharpton is going to beat George Bush?
Her
Who is Al Sharpton?
Me I rest my case. Bush campaigned in the 2002 elections and won the Senate back, and gained in the House. Do you know what issue he campaigned on? He campaigned on National Security and Iraq. If his poll numbers go down any, which I have seen no evidence of, it will be because he hasn't done something about Iraq soon enough. He campaigned for his Senators, and they were elected.
Her
Iraq wasn't the one that flew the planes into the buildings, it was the other guy. There is no connection. Why aren't we going after North Korea, or any of these other countries who have nuclear weapons?
Me
North Korea and Iran and the other countries have announced they have the weapons. Iraq is attempting to hide theirs. Second of all, you said earlier you were sick of us getting involved in other countries conflicts. We have announced this is a regional conflict, and are trying to get China and Japan to pressure North Korea into complying. So you are just going to hope there was no connection between Iraq and Al-Queda and leave it? If you lived in Iraq wouldn't you want to be freed? How do you explain the defectors from Iraq who say most people in Iraq are for this war? Did you know Saddam thinks the Gulf War never ended? Did you know Saddam has vowed revenge? Did you know he tried to kill George Bush Sr?
Her
Its not my judgement to make. The Iraqi people should make the judgement themselves. I am not qualified to make that judgement. I agree that if somebody bombed France, Germany probably wouldn't help out.
(This is the point I start getting frustrated because liberals always say that its not their judgement to make, so I reworded the question to make it a little tougher for them to answer with talking points. Hehehehehehehe!
Me What do you think is going to happen when we bomb Iraq? Do you think the Iraqi's are just going to sit in their living rooms and yawn and say.."Oh crap they've forced liberty on us" Heck No!! They're going to be dancing in the streets! Screaming at the top of their lungs at the oppurtunity provided to them! How do you think the Iraqi's will react? Seeing as how you say you have their best interest in mind?
Her (At this point she hung her head, and said quietly...yes that is the point that I hear most conservatives make)
Me
All the countries were for us liberating Kuwait in the Gulf War. We liberated Kuwait and as a result of that we gave Saddam a list of rules he has to follow. He never followed any of them. He refuses to listen to the UN. The only way he will comply is by force. Do you think those protests in Iraq are genuine? Or do you think they are staged by the government?
Her
Our government wouldn't want people going around here saying "Go Iraq" They wouldn't like that. We have got to get the Israel and Palestine situation figured out. Somebody needs to tell these guys to work this stuff out, and promote peace over there.
Me
How do you propose we promote peace with Israel and Palestine? While it is still a minority, I have heard many liberal columnists including Ellen Ratner say they hope we lose this war. You hear NO dissention in Iraq.
Her Somebody has to tell Israel and Palestine to work their situation out.
Me The UN passed a resolution on it a long time ago, but the Palestinians don't seem to be listening to it. Shows you how well the UN resolutions work. Did you know that after we bombed Afghanistan 2 million people have moved back into the country?
Her Well I will say in support of the war that the conditions those Afghani women were living under was brutal oppression.
Me Exactly! Now they are going to school and learning and doing all sorts of things they were never allowed to do before. Like speak for instance.
How pithy you are to start with an insult and quotes so audible I'm tempted to paint a little picture of you making the "air quotes" while you wrote your "post".
Obviously she didn't really know what was going on if she didn't even know who Al Sharpton was.
If you're going to argue current events, you should probably know about them, wouldn't you say? Hmmmmmm? ;-)
Maybe you should try arguing with a real liberal sometime and not some straw-woman and then see how you fare. *rolls eyes*
Thank you for the image! We sure couldn't tell you were sarcastic yet. Nawwww. We thought you were selling cookies!
Let's talk about some of your errors in your argument...
Nah. Let's talk about the ones in YOURS.
1. In the latest polls most people said they would vote for a Democrat rather than George Bush in the next election.
What poll are you citing? Where is it? Where's the link? We like to post links here at FR, you may have noticed that. Kinda easy. I'll show you how to do the HTML if you don't know how -- although JimRob has updated the site so even an idiot can use it now (which unfortunately lets more of them get in *cough*).
Even if you produce that poll, I'll lay money on the table that the question is loaded. And what WAS the wording of the question? Do you remember that? You're awful short on facts already.
2. Do you really think when the bombs start dropping Iraqis are going to be in the streets celebrating?
Not unless they're very stupid, no, but there may be herds of reporters all over the place...
HARDLY! They are going to be in their bomb shelters praying to Allah that a bomb doesn't drop on them making them
Okay, I'm still with you...
become one of the thousands upon thousands of collateral damage that will occur once the war starts.
Oh, right, I *think* this might be where we differ. Thousands upon thousands of lives? Give me the stats for the Gulf War. Give me the stats for Afghanistan. We are inevitably going to war, and you WANT to assume the worst? You must dislike the Iraqi people to want them to die like that...I'm certain our military is more cautious than you are about such things. Or, at least, I think they probably are. Maybe you're smarter than ALL of them and you really can predict the future -- including exact casualty lists. In which case, could you privately mail me the lottery numbers for tomorrow?
3. Saddam doesn't like Bin Laden and Bin Laden doesn't like Saddam. That is obvious to ANYONE who pays attention to the news.
I watch the news all the time, unless I've been hallucinating and my TV is stuck on the Animal Channel or something...and it's not at all obvious to me. What's obvious is that Saddam wants to delay. A nice way to delay is to play down his al-Qaeda links -- but, you know, that's just what I think, what do I know, I'm just someone who pays attention to the news.
Why would Saddam assist someone who ultimately wants to see Saddam toppled.
Hmm. Wait. You have evidence that al-Qaeda is planning to topple Saddam? GREAT! We don't have to send ANY American troops in! Sweet!
Oh, and by the way, where are your sources again? Oh, those pesky sources.
If you know anything about anything
...you wouldn't write a post like this...
you know that Saddam is all about saving himself and his regime.
Wow. You come up with that all by yourself? You, my friend, are SMOOTH! Although, ya know, Saddam's also about grabbing more power so his regime can eventually dominate the Middle East, and then...the world, he hopes, in his wet dreams.
Saddam giving Bin Laden support would not be consistent with that.
Well, wait, let me just try to use my pea-brain here, since I'm up against a "real liberal". Bin Laden's #1 enemy is the United States, #2 is Israel (I hope you don't dispute that -- you can mess with the order if you want, doesn't affect my argument). As we speak, Saddam is being threatened by 300,000 precisely-trained, honed, American and Brit homegrown badasses with enough heavy weaponry to make the general vicinity look like the surface of the sun on a hot day. Have you ever heard "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? Why did WSC grudgingly take Joe Stalin's support? He needed it. Saddam needs whatever he can get right now. If anything, he'd be MORE likely to turn to fringe terrorist groups at the moment, since he's boxed in like...a man surrounded by 300,000 US and UK homegrown badasses. EVEN if we are to believe that Bin Laden is interested in "toppling" Hussein. Which you didn't produce a source for. Even if you fail to produce the source, though, I can still argue that point easily, although let's see if you can dig up that pesky source FOIST, mmkay, "real liberal"?
4. The women of Afghanistan still wear burqas.
Yes, by choice. It's engrained. I have an Indian friend who doesn't eat meat -- not because he's Hindhu (he's an atheist), not because he's a vegetarian (he's eaten meat and likes it), but just because it's force of habit -- it's the way he was brought up. If you lived in a country ruled by a dictator where you had, say, been forced to wear tan pants and tan pants only for 30 years, and suddenly liberators came, disarmed the dictator, and told you you were now free to walk around with no pants on at all, because that was their custom, would you be likely to be running around in your tight-whiteys everywhere?
Religious law is still being enforced to some degree.
Where? Show me.
The Bush administration neglected to include aid to Afghanistan in his budget.
Uhm, if you'd like to place a bet on whether or not aid will be sent to Afghanistan by Bush, now's the time! :-)
Afghanistan still doesn't have the most stable or functioning government.
Afghanistan -- yeah, it's doing awfully. I mean, after decades of civil war, Soviet incursion, starvation, repression, war, war, war, more war...and finally liberation...they haven't gotten it *all* together under a year and half or so. What a complete failure, really. I just can't fathom a place that can't get its government together...ah wait...I live in America...we elected Bill Clinton twice, I *do* know what its like to live under a non-stable, dysfunctional government! Ah!
I feel your pain, oh, I r'ally do. :-(
My father always told me to do one thing at a time and do it well and then move on to the next.
Well, then, thank God your father was never elected to public office, because "anyone who knows anything" knows that in public office you are constantly dealing with 8 gazillion issues at once. I just wish your father had given you the "Sh*t/Shinola" lesson, or maybe the one about telling that orifice on your behind from a hole in the wall.
Plus, I bet MY dad can beat up YOUR dad!
It is a shame George W. didn't learn that from his dad.
Well, I think what he learned from pop was: P***ying out doesn't pay, if anything.
And it's a shame Bush I didn't finish this 12 years ago...because he wanted to do one thing at a time...step by step...through the United Nations.
You are a new, amazing, mutant breed of idiot. I don't know whether to laugh at you or...man, salute you for being SO dumb.
Berkeley the TOWN is disgusting. The campus is quite beautiful. And yeah, they let me in. :p I had to hold my tongue a lot though, and sometimes force a laugh in class or hide my disgust at a Prof's out-of-place comment. It's not as bad as you think. I spoke with Angelo Codevilla at the Hoover Institute before I chose between Stanford and Berkeley (and now I live in MA, man, go figure, I must be a masochist), and he STRONGLY urged me to go to Berkeley, said Stanford was *way* more entrenched dreary liberal ("If you want to coast and get a B, come here, if you want to work hard for an A, go to Berkeley -- but here you can take on the liberals in their true bastion of strength, Berkeley is truly more open"). At least Berkeley liberals had senses of humor (I know, seems like a contradiction, but they did), and believe it or not, I even managed to take a course on free market capitalism (day one starts with an overhead projection with tallies of the death tolls of citizenry under Commie regimes -- chilling). I even moved some opinions. People listened to me. There's hope.
I also lived in the Elmwood district, which is nicer, kinda a little haven, you might know if you were out there...South Berkeley.
Later experience showed me first-hand that real entrenched dangerous liberalism is in the Ivy League schools. People like to say "Berkeley!" cuz it has that instant name recognition from the '60s, but those hippies are dying off -- the stuffy, snotty liberals of Today & Tomorrow are much more at Columbia, Yale, Harvard, *trust me*. I strongly advocate sending your kid to UC Berkeley if you want; it really has some of the best departments in the country, no joke. The *trick* is to walk out on the Profs who make their politics part of the course. You can spot them quickly. And I wouldn't want to come out of Berkeley with a poly sci major, but I had a friend who worked his *butt* off for a history major -- who was also a major conservative.
Her (At this point she hung her head, and said quietly...yes that is the point that I hear most conservatives make)
HOLD ON THERE!! I thought that George Bush was one a one-man crusade and no one supports him?
I've really stopped talking to most anti-war types as by this point we are not so much having a discussion as yelling at each other across a chasm. I just tell them that I plan on giving them an "I told you so" AFTER we win. What (for me) is going to be interesting is what happens on day 3.
Day one the war starts
Day two Saddam is defeated
Day three dancing in the streets of Bagdad
Day four.....?
As long as Saddam does not use his people as human shields and does not house WMD in civilian areas, thousands of innocent people WILL NOT die.
We will airdrop in food and medicine as needed before, during, and after the attacks like we did in Afghanistan to ensure that innocent people do not die.
A lot has happened since WWII. We have these things called satelites now. Ever hear of them? We know where the Iraqi assets are because of them. And use global positioning satelites to guide a good portion of our weapons arsenal. (Despite Saddam's pathetic attempt to place GPS jammers out there.)
Did "thousands of innocent people" die in Afghanistan? I don't think so.
Have fun counter-protesting, hippie. Your protests have no effect but to undermine the memories of those who lost their lives on 9-11 and to promote the agenda of a murderous two-bit dictator. And if you seriously believe there is no Al-Queda connection, you have been on the whacky weed too long.
That thought did cross my mind while I was writing it. ;-)
Although I do give him/her points for trying to skilfully obscure the fact that s/he has no evidence to back up his/her arguments. ;-) A B for effort!
But a C- in not taking oneself so seriously. :-)
Day four, we start pulling the WMDs out of hiding. Day four, whatever day it occurs on, will be the beginning of the end of liberal credibility.
I at least give this girl (I'm pretty sure this is a woman, I'm just going to assume it from here on, if I'm wrong, I apologize) credit for showing up and posting here and taking the heat. It's a pity she's so dreadfully wrong and doesn't believe in backing up her opinions with facts. But there's always time for EVERYBODY to change. Maybe some day she'll be a little wiser. I know a lot of hardcore conservatives who started out as liberals in their 20s. Remember the Frost quote -- "Show me a young man who's a conservative and I'll show you a man with no heart; show me an old man who's a liberal and I'll show you a man with no head."
Which, unfortunately, means I don't have a heart, so...that might explain why I don't get as many dates as I'd like.
She seems to think we should provide the evidence to support her arguments, and when we do not do so responds by essentially sticking out her tongue at us like some tantrum-throwing child.
And liberals consider this suitable conduct for intellectual discourse?
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