Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Fine, MOST democrats and liberals hold the same position<< Prove it.
Originally Posted By cmpaley What Beau fails to realize is that Democrats are not like Republicans. Generally speaking, Republicans are like an army, marching in lockstep, everyone agreeing witht he party platform, at least in word, if not in deed. Fail to agree with the party on all items, you are a "RINO" and are shunned from Republican society. Democrats tend to be more tolerant of different ideas in the party (except, for some reason, the issue of abortion). There are pro-war democrats and anti-war democrats. There are pro-death penalty democrats and anti-death penalty democrats. There Democrats who are Christian and Democrats who are atheists. But, you see, Beau, being a Republican, has a tendency to project his Republican mindset (lockstep, sameness) on Democrats, gets the stereotype from talk radio and runs with it. It's quite amusing to watch if you step back and forget that some of the things people on the far right go on about actually affect peoples' lives.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "I belong to no organized political party. I'm a Democrat." - Will Rogers
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Prove it.> If the majority of Democrats don't believe it, then they need to get new leadership, because that's what their congressional leaders and the party chairman is saying.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <What Beau fails to realize is that Democrats are not like Republicans. Generally speaking, Republicans are like an army, marching in lockstep, everyone agreeing witht he party platform, at least in word, if not in deed.> There's as much diversity amongst the Republican party as there is amongst the Democrats. It's Rep Pelosi that's made all of the members of her party in the House sign a loyalty agreement, not Speaker Hastert.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Then what does RINO mean? I've never heard of DINO. The ONLY issue that democrats are insistent upon is abortion, which I oppose ardently because of my faith. And speaking of loyalty oaths, Bush wouldn't let people into his campaign rallies without one. Schwarzenegger wouldn't let people into his campaign rallies without one. Be careful of the speck in your brother's eye when you have a beam in your own.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <I've never heard of DINO.> They don't allow them in the Democrat party.
Originally Posted By cmpaley I don't think the category DINO exists. Aside from the pro-abortion position, the Democrat Party seem to be pretty blasé about most issues. Republicans are rather insistent, however, that you MUST be pro-war, pro-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant (but not immigration), pro-business in all cases, anti-union in all cases and the like.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Republicans are rather insistent, however, that you MUST be pro-war, pro-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant (but not immigration), pro-business in all cases, anti-union in all cases and the like.> Nonsense.
Originally Posted By Spree Post 68 is pure tripe: There are several million religious persons(tens of thousands Union members) in the Republican Party who vote Republican for its pro-family social standings but who are very much against the Death Penalty....and many were even against the Iraq War. Really, 68 was just flat out false rhetoric based on superficial stereotypes and not much else.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Name ONE Republican in the past five years who has done right by unions and unionized labor.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Oh, and name one Republican who is in any position of "legitimacy," importance and influence who has spoken out against the war or against the death penalty or in favor of unionized labor. You can't because they're not ALLOWED into positions of authority by THE PARTY.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Regarding Bush, the reason he may have not lied in the strictest sense of the term is that his administration has been extremely careful to word things in such a way that what is actually said is different from the intended interpretation. For example, consider the President's comments in the summer of 2002 when he said [regarding Iraq] "I have no military plan on my desk that calls for . . . that plots out a military operation." How do we judge this in the face of what we now know to be plans from the very first cabinet meeting of his administration, months prior to 9/11, that they were talking about ways to oust Saddam? Was the fact that he had no plans "on his desk" truthful? Well, I'm sure it was in the strictest sense. But that's about as close to a lie as you can get, and does require a qutie a bit of charity to say that it wasn't in fact a lie. This technique, BTW, is what made me suspicious about the whole WMD claims in the spring of 2003. I had to ask myself, if they had all of this overwhelming evidence, why are they walking on eggshells every time they talk about it?
Originally Posted By tiggertoo <<If Bush is soooooo bad, then why did over 80% of the military vote Bush in their PRIVATE voting booths?>> Can you cite your source please? I'm sure I know a heck of a lot more military personnel than you Beau, full-timer, careers soldiers unlike the part-timers you mentioned. The entire squadron and their families get together about ever other week for a barbeque plus various other parties (retirement parties, etc...), all military servicemen and women in attendance. Of these people, it seems to run about even pro and con on the war. I know the many of the brass seem to favor the war, but the enlisted it would seem are fairly even, at best 60%–40% in favor of Bush. Many of military folks here didn’t even vote. They figured that nothing will change anyway so why bother. So I'm curious where you got your numbers and how it breaks down by rank. And note that morale has little to do with how they feel about the war. They do feel like they are winning and have every right to as they are doing a kick*** job over there. But whether it was justified is another matter altogether.
