Originally Posted By ecdc >>I have heard quite a few Democrats call President Bush alot worse names...Not excusing their behavior by any means, but President Bush was called literally every curse word in the book by countless individuals...<< Evidence? Links? And let's not move the goalposts. You've said countless people. You've said the parties are the same. You've said this is just a small part of the extreme right. Let's ask again: where's the evidence to equate what's happening among Republicans with what's happening among Democrats? If it's as obvious as you insist, William, the evidence should be easy to find and readily available. Where's Democrats hanging Republicans in effigy? Where's groups of Democrats disrupting meetings? Where's this overwhelming evidence that both sides are the same? And since these people are just a crazy fringe, where's the sane Republican party? Where's the evidence that they've denounced it? I assume no Republican will be appearing on Rush Limbaugh's show in the future since he compared Obama to Hitler?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan And then how do you handle this?<< At a certain point, they cross from free speech into disturbing the peace. Start issuing citations if they don't settle down and stop trying to dominate the debate. It's funny, they want to shout everyone else down, prohibit everyone else's right to free speech so they can follow their marching orders.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Good point Hope Max. And what is facinating, is none of them can explain exactly what it is they do not like about it (other that a few stating they are concerned about government's ability to affectively manage it). I suspect it is more likely they are selfish money motivated people without the guts to admit it. At least on the left, people will explain why they feel the way they do rather than just walk away from the debate or change the subject.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>At a certain point, they cross from free speech into disturbing the peace. Start issuing citations if they don't settle down and stop trying to dominate the debate.<<< You make an interesting point here toony. If these people were not WASPs or wealthy, how long would it be until the police were there in riot gear?
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Ok, I suspect I kill a lot of these threads due to being a slightly lefty passionate.
Originally Posted By hopemax > At a certain point, they cross from free speech into disturbing the peace. Start issuing citations if they don't settle down and stop trying to dominate the debate. < Well, that is what is happening. But I predict, you will start hearing the GOP elected officials, and the talking heads turn it to how Democrats are denying American citizens their rights to free speech, assembly and participate in the dialog about the direction of this country. And the truth will not matter. Just like the GOP can lie about what is and isn't in the bill. And it will creep into the minds of normal Americans that maybe their government IS doing something anti-American.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan If these people were not WASPs or wealthy, how long would it be until the police were there in riot gear?<< I don't know, but I don't think it would be tolerated very long. I don't think there's anything wrong, by the way, with a little civil disobedience now and then. Keeps everyone on their toes. But this new tactic of simply shouting down and derailing any town meeting is going to backfire in a big way. The side doing all this shouting and is "outraged" is largely that 20% that supported every Bush policy the last 8 years. They'll never accept that they held the reigns for all those years and ran the country into a deep ditch and were shown the door last election.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo What is interesting is if we look to the principles these people seem to be standing behind in their anger, there seem to be a number of "traditional" reasons for Health Reform. In the preamble of the Constitution, it states: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The key point here is: "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, ... promote the general welfare," This seems to back the idea of for social medicine. Justice is not only about the courts, it is about giving everyone a fair chance. Domestic tranquility...ever asked an ill person or their relative if they feel tranquil? And social health is all about the promotion of general welfare is it not? Now I know some of them would site the liberty element, but under social medicine structures, people can still choose.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo True Toony, within reason, civil disobedience can be a great thing - peaceful protests, writing campaigns, petitions etc.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "Limbaugh and the "base" say they support Israel. And then, because they don't like Obama's fiscal policy or health care, they diminish the horrors of Nazi rule by comparing anyone they disagree with to Hitler. Fox News, Hannity, Limbaugh, Glenn beck -- they all enjoy huge ratings." Don't forget Michael Levin- I've mentioned his name a few times recently as his profile is rising. He's had a best seller for over six months which has fed his syndicated talk show, and he's probably the most dangerous of the bunch. He's nothing but a pile steaming yelling profane protolasm, but he's got a base, and he's encouraging it to act out. There's no rational debate right now. People keep trotting out how Bush as treated by the left but he had to needlessly a invade sovereign country before that happened, and even then, he got the benefit of the doubt for a while until it became apparent not one single reason he gave for doing it was true. So he got about three years of united support before things turned. Obama, he merely had to get elected before the the crap hit the fan, and before then. The hard right GOP is the biggest bunch of sore losers in U.S. history, and they make it worse each day by refusing to acknowledge how they got in the hole they now find they occupy.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "He's nothing but a pile of steaming, yelling, profane protoplasm,"
Originally Posted By ecdc SPP's post 30 points out another important distinction between Bush and Obama. Bush earned the vitriol of those who later criticized him. He invaded Iraq, squandered our good will after 9/11, put incompetent people in charge of important things, bowed to Cheney and Wolfowitz, blundered Katrina, inserted himself into the Terri Schiavo debate, and talked like a nervous 12 year old giving a talk in front of the school. Sure, there were some Democrats who hated him from day one. I wasn't one of them, but they existed. And I'm sure if one went digging, one could absolutely find extremism and stupidity among them. But there's no evidence that they were anywhere near the size, scope, or influence of the current Republican crazies. Until we see some evidence, that remains a sticking point for those who insist both sides are the same. So what has Obama done to earn the hatred of these people? As SPP pointed out, he had the audacity to run a great campaign and win both the popular vote and electoral vote by a healthy margin. How dare he do the American thing and win fairly! What else has Obama done? Well, that's just the thing. The right-wing has constructed such a bizarre fantasyworld, that half the things they hate Obama for aren't even real. His birth certificate. His "socialism." They're so bloody clueless about the country they profess to love, they have no idea that government is already in the healthcare business. You'd think they could bother to at least hate Obama for stuff he's actually done. Oh well.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo lol ecdc. I have heard the right raise their concerns at the amount of money spent on bail outs. But I would hate to think if they just let Bernie Mac et al flounder.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<Sure, there were some Democrats who hated him from day one. I wasn't one of them, but they existed. And I'm sure if one went digging, one could absolutely find extremism and stupidity among them. But there's no evidence that they were anywhere near the size, scope, or influence of the current Republican crazies. Until we see some evidence, that remains a sticking point for those who insist both sides are the same.>> I was one of the Dems who hated Bush BEFORE day one. And no way we were a fringe group. I did my homework -- lots of it -- during the election. I educated myself on this man's privileged background, his mediocre academic performance in school, how Papa Bush called in favors and got sonny boy at the head of the 100,000 person waiting list for the Texas Air National Guard "champagne unit" during the Vietnam War, and most importantly, his failed record as an oil prospector and infamous backdoor shenanigans via Karl Rove's guidance as Governor of Texas. Reading Molly Ivins' column in the DFW Star-Telegram as well as her books about Dubya's history in Texas was very informative. I knew that someone with such a sordid political past and zero business sense in one failed oil deal after another was going to be a very bad President. There were plenty of us who hated Bush from day one. But we had years of Bush history to draw upon to back us up.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder My posts lately have been somewhat economical, and not very, well good. I've been on painkillers for a while for a back problem, and the way I can describe it is functionally loopy but cranky. So what's the difference, one might ask? Now I admit it.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I was one of the Dems who hated Bush BEFORE day one. And no way we were a fringe group.<< Right. I get that. What I was saying was that I'm sure someone like William could go digging and find, among those of you that hated Bush from day one, extreme statements comparing him to Hitler, saying he's a Nazi, etc. I don't mean to imply everyone did that or everyone who disliked Bush from day one was on the fringe. My overall point is that the tendency on these boards has been to find one or two extreme examples of Democrats acting stupidly, then saying, "Aha! See! Democrats and Republicans are the same! There's crazies on both sides!" Of course, no one has ever said there's not crazies on both sides or disputed that Democrats have nuts in their party. But there's no evidence of extremism in the Democratic party having nearly the pull or influence it does in the Republican party. It's just that simple.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Michael Moore is a bad "go-to" example as a left wing kook - at least for health care. He made "Sicko" which was a documentary about the level of disfunction within the US health care industry. It wasn't partisan and it wasn't shrill or hysterical. When it comes to the US health care system, Moore is practically a subject matter expert.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<But there's no evidence of extremism in the Democratic party having nearly the pull or influence it does in the Republican party. It's just that simple.>> Agreed. The majority of the extremists have always aligned themselves with the GOP, year after year after year.
