Politics
May 22, 2005 6:38 PM Subscribe

Leaving the left. "I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion." Keith Thompson
posted by semmi (184 comments total)

Is there any particular reason anyone should care?

Signed,
Not a lefty, but a left-leaning, free-thinking individual
posted by a_day_late at 6:49 PM on May 22, 2005

From a casual glancing though of his website, this guy seems about as liberal as Zell Miller, and it seems like he's always been this way. This is a misleading article--Thompson hasn't "left" the left, it doesn't look like he was ever really a part of it. More conservative back-patting for pseudo-liberals "seeing through" the inherent wrongness of the left. Find me an article where a conservative admits they were wrong (or a true liberal leaves), and THEN I'll be impressed.
posted by scarymonsterrrr at 6:50 PM on May 22, 2005

Sounds like he's hanging out with the wrong people - namely, the people who insist on calling themselves "leftists," "progressives," and "liberals." He should have turned around the moment they introduced themselves as such - I usually do, as I do with people who call themselves "right-wing," "conservative," or "I can't think of a third synonym."

You go to dinner parties with people who wear their flags on their sleeves and buy their own propaganda, you're going to want to disassociate from them no matter what they call themselves. Nobody cares about this guy and his big life-changing decision to switch labels.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:04 PM on May 22, 2005

So the "leading left intellectuals" this grumpy old fart is leaving consist of Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Jesse Jackson, and Ted Kennedy, and Susan Estrich, all of whom are (or were) barely clinging on to whatever broader relevance they once had. I stopped paying attention to their antics ages ago, and I'm still pretty fucking far from center.

Don't let the door hit you.
posted by schoolgirl report at 7:06 PM on May 22, 2005

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients

Ah. It's those trial lawyers again, huh.

What a mish-mash of complaints.

Not convincing to liberals, embarassing to conservatives (I would hope).
posted by kozad at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2005

His critical thinking skills sure have left him. That piece is weird--Where has he been since Jan? Hasn't he seen the enormous upsurge in violence and the total ineffectualness of this miraculous "elected" body? Where was he when Abu Ghraib came out? The Downing St. minutes? etc.
posted by amberglow at 7:15 PM on May 22, 2005

Ahem, seems like he touched a nerve here. If Kennedy, Estrich, Vidal, Sontag et al. shouldn't be considered "leading left intellectuals" who should we include in that category today? If Afghanistan shouldn't be considered better off today (on balance, in this imperfect world) than it was under the Taliban I'd love to hear why. What exactly is wrong with his critical thinking skills?
posted by twsf at 7:23 PM on May 22, 2005

LOL
posted by DuoJet at 7:32 PM on May 22, 2005

The left he describes is almost unrecognizable to this particular pinko. He cherry-picks bits and pieces, while carefully ignoring the actual issues, like why we're in Iraq in the first place, and why we abandoned Afghanistan when the job had barely begun.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:36 PM on May 22, 2005

..."leading left intellectuals" who should we include in that category today?

Those people listed have never been considered leading left intellectuals--and Vidal and Sontag are just regular intellectuals/authors. (Kennedy and Estrich are not intellectuals at all, but a politician and a political operative)

I'd say Lakoff (the framing guy), that Florida guy (Creative Class), any of these folks, John Rawls...
posted by amberglow at 7:40 PM on May 22, 2005

Susan Sontag cleared her throat for the "courage" of the al Qaeda pilots.

Sigh. She wrote:

And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.

I expect the usual wingnuts to have loathed Susan Sontag's piece (it more or less comes with the territory) but when self-proclaimed "former liberals" do it, I always get the impression that they just can't contain their fury at the sheer audacity of what was done on 9/11. They were only comfortable being "liberal" as long as they were safely in a position of control; the shock of 9/11 was that it was a (however brief) exercise of totally unexpected power.

As kozad said, "a mish-mash of complaints". In the end, given his change of heart, I'd be more interested in where he's going to rather than where he's come from. If his disillusionment is enough to overlook the full agenda of the Frist/DeLay/Santorum axis, well, that's quite a trick.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:51 PM on May 22, 2005

Sen. Robert Byrd for me thanks
posted by Elim at 7:54 PM on May 22, 2005

Armitage: you have to admit, it probably takes a bit more courage to die for a cuase rather than to just kill for one...

so to call suicide bombers and such coward show a basic lack of understanding of the word...
posted by Elim at 7:57 PM on May 22, 2005

If his disillusionment is enough to overlook the full agenda of the Frist/DeLay/Santorum axis, well, that's quite a trick.

I wonder if there are more options developing.
posted by semmi at 8:01 PM on May 22, 2005

well, Gingrich's making a comeback--enjoy!
posted by amberglow at 8:05 PM on May 22, 2005

In the end, given his change of heart, I'd be more interested in where he's going to rather than where he's come from. If his disillusionment is enough to overlook the full agenda of the Frist/DeLay/Santorum axis, well, that's quite a trick.

That might be the crux of a lot of people's frustration with politics: if you're disillusioned with the left but can't stomach the right, there really isn't anyplace for you in todays arena.
posted by jonmc at 8:12 PM on May 22, 2005

This fits my own experiences, actually. I'm still very hard left economically, but have been increasingly frustrated with the left's inability to articulate a clear democratic or strategic foreign policy vision. Personally, I think overreliance on the discourse of identity politics throughout the late '80s and early '90s has left progressive democrats more concerned with personal rectitude and less concerned with pragmatic politics. How else to conscience the turnout/sympathy for Nader in 2000?

I'm not a republican, by any means and I'd be the first to cheer if Delay got strung up. But I'm a little more hawkish on Iraq than I thought I'd be. And Bush's rhetoric of freedom and democracy in the middle east, even if it's a cynical language game, still resonates with me. These are humanist values and their invocation transforms the invoker even as it has an effect on the audience.

Mainly, I'd like to see a middle ground re-emerge in which people can discuss issues based on principle and philosophy rather than partisan realpolitik. I fear that day may be a long time coming, but when it does, it'll take at least as many democrats who choke on their own ideological nostrums as it does republicans who've gotten sick of their party's moral bankruptcy.
posted by felix betachat at 8:14 PM on May 22, 2005

And Bush's rhetoric of freedom and democracy in the middle east, even if it's a cynical language game, still resonates with me. These are humanist values and their invocation transforms the invoker even as it has an effect on the audience.
Ever think about that those words are meant for you, and us here, and not at all what the real intentions are in the middle east? And that they're incompatible with our actual actions there, past and present?
posted by amberglow at 8:17 PM on May 22, 2005

if you're disillusioned with the left but can't stomach the right, there really isn't anyplace for you in todays arena.

I'm telling you man, Puritan Anarchism. Well, most people don't like the Puritan part.
posted by nanojath at 8:18 PM on May 22, 2005

From Amberglow's link: In his book, Gingrich reminds us that this nation—that’s you and I—must commit to a long war in order to defeat the Islamic fundamentalists determined to drag the world back to the seventh century.

what I want to know is: how many centuries back do Christian fundamentalists want to drag the world back?
posted by leftcoastbob at 8:19 PM on May 22, 2005

I wonder if there are more options developing.

I certainly hope so. Even the thought of Bill Frist vs Hillary Clinton in 2008 is too depressing for words. Perhaps the moderate end of the Republican Party will have the courage (there's that word again) to stage an internal coup in the next three years. I suspect they'd gain as many votes as they lost by doing it.

And Bush's rhetoric of freedom and democracy in the middle east, even if it's a cynical language game, still resonates with me.

Well, yeah, that's the problem. I want to believe. But the more time that goes by, the more obvious it becomes to me that these are the wrong people to implement that rhetoric.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:19 PM on May 22, 2005

I'm not fond of either side quite frankly. Puritan, well, you can guess my feelings on that...as for anarchism, there's a classic quote from Boyd Rice: "Anarchist=Liberal in leather jacket."
posted by jonmc at 8:20 PM on May 22, 2005

twsf re: Afghanistan the soviet occupation of the country brought with it schools hospitals sports stadiums and expanding civil rights particularly womens.The US promoted a civil war there that virtually destroyed the country the only people left with any organizing skill at all were the talib,
young devout muslim students. kind of like religious boy scouts who awful as they turned out to be would not have been in a position of power had it not been for the US support of radical extreme Islamic (Bin Laden) Afghanistan was far better off under the soviet, they built .we destroy, and blame victims.
posted by hortense at 8:21 PM on May 22, 2005

"Armitage: you have to admit, it probably takes a bit more courage to die for a cuase rather than to just kill for one..."

I would argue the opposite. It is relatively easy to whip one's self or another into a frenzy of self righteous of self-pitying anger and then martyrdom. Courage is not needed. To kill for a belief takes much more effort and oftentimes courage.
posted by arse_hat at 8:35 PM on May 22, 2005

OR self-pitying
posted by arse_hat at 8:36 PM on May 22, 2005

Yeah, I agree, Zell Miller clone = : Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs . . . (all of a sudden I'm hungry for some chocolate. . . .
posted by mk1gti at 8:37 PM on May 22, 2005

Hortense while I see the point you're making, that really was an INCREDIBLY difficult-to-read post. Your thoughts seem reasonable, but I've included in this post some things you may need in the future.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
......................
;;;;;;;;;;;
!! (use these sparingly)
[shift key]
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:42 PM on May 22, 2005

To kill for a belief takes much more effort and oftentimes courage.

Why would it take much more effort and oftentimes courage to whip one's self into a frenzy of self righteous or self-pitying anger in order to kill someone else rather than yourself? You even get the extra benefit of the satisfaction afterwards.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:44 PM on May 22, 2005

"Why would it take much more effort ..."
Because most folks have to do some work to convince themselves to kill another and live on. Killing one's self in martyrdom is easier I believe.
posted by arse_hat at 8:47 PM on May 22, 2005

Who is this guy again? Oh, nobody. Ok.
posted by Arch Stanton at 8:53 PM on May 22, 2005

arse-hat:

I doubt it. I can think of lots of things I'd kill over, but very few I'd die over. Maybe I'm evil.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 8:56 PM on May 22, 2005

Thompson makes what I feel is a serious mistake. He argues, essentially, that the left refuses to applaud the development of a democracy in the third world. But this is just completely disingenuous. What the left decries is the way in which the elections in Iraq were brought about. Two wrongs simply do not make a right.

Oh and about Brownback, the senator "best record on human rights"?

He voted against:
- Increases in funding and access to family planning services
- Funding for legislation that requires equitable prescription coverage for contraceptives under health plans
- Funding for legislation that would create and expand teen pregnancy prevention programs and education programs concerning emergency contraceptives
- Keeping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge closed to oil drilling
- Requiring the Federal government to assist in the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes
- The addition of sexual orientation, gender and disability to list of people affected by hate crimes
- Providing $10 million through 2003 to Justice Department for grants to state and local governments if Federal assistance is needed

And voted for:
- Providing no enforcement authority for a rule that required employers to educate workers about ways to prevent injuries from repetitive motions such as typing, sorting or lifting heavy loads
- Providing no enforcement authority for a rule that required businesses to take steps to minimize work-related repetitive stress disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome
- Amending the Constitution of the United States to include a definition of marriage.
- Defining marriage as a union consisting between only a man and woman.
- Prohibiting individual states from recognizing marital status and or legal benefits from any other unions other than that of a man and woman.

How Thompson can say he agrees with Brownback more than any other senator and say that it's the left that has betrayed its origins in the same breath is beyond me.
posted by oddman at 8:58 PM on May 22, 2005

1600+ dead and $300B on this Iraqi Freedom project, and people are still invested in it.

If people realized we're going to have to pay for this war someday (ie increased taxes), there'd be a lot less support for continuing our occupation, save for the deluded fools like PP who are still hoping for evidence of Saddam's actual WMD program-related activities to turn up somewhere to justify our armed intervention.

But Bushco was pretty brilliant; drive our armed forces into a ditch and then challenge his opposition to repair the situation.

LBJ finally jacked up tax rates 10% in 1968 to pay for his war. I wonder how long this admin will keep these balls in the air.

Who am I kidding; they're bankrupting this country intentionally.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:03 PM on May 22, 2005

I don't really get any of this partisan stuff, being a Puritan Anarchist myself, but I don't know anyone on any side who doesn't want Iraqis to have self-determination, to have a government they elected themselves, who didn't respect the courage Iraqis showed in going to the polls.

There is the catch. Everyone wants the Iraqi's to have self-determination. However, given 20th century history with the Shah, Pinochet, and the Contras, some of us are skeptical about whether the U.S. Administration has the political will to accept self-determination when it might work against our best interests.

Remember that members of the current administration freedom and democracy involved massacres, and death squads trained by U.S. military and intelligence personel. Not that anybody will go on record to admit it.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:04 PM on May 22, 2005

Simper Fi!
< / liberal humor>
posted by moonbird at 9:15 PM on May 22, 2005

“I doubt it. I can think of lots of things I'd kill over, but very few I'd die over. Maybe I'm evil.”

Not evil, just OK. I think most people see taking a life as a serious issue (thankfully), but when people are desperate or self-absorbed martyrdom is an easy answer (I’ll show him, her, them!) and the collateral dead are not really seen in any meaningful way.
posted by arse_hat at 9:23 PM on May 22, 2005

The several of you who immediately jumped to the idea of Mr. Thompson supporting Republicans are clearly wrong. He never espoused those ideals wholesale.

What he did espouse was packing himself in a lifeboat and getting the hell away from the current framework of liberal politics.

Thompson clearly doesn't know where he belongs yet or what the solution is, but his support of some things happening now doesn't necessarily mean he supports all the trappings, nor that he supports those idea's promulgators in everything.

However, if you'd like to deal in absolutes, if you think he's either with you or against you, there's a nice man in the White House I'd like to introduce to you.
posted by Captaintripps at 9:29 PM on May 22, 2005

That the election was his turning point reveals how little he knows about the nature of democracy. The Iraq election was did more harm than good. It set the stage for increased internal conflict by holding nations election rather than local. By holding local elections, voters would at least feel represented rather than voting by whatever greater identity they'd fit into nationally. This resulted in fewer winning parties with more power than support. This situation leads to resentment. As progress stalls this will only grow. Since the situation is not only stalled but backsliding due to increased violence and continued abuse scandals, it's clear that US occupation will never stop the violence.

I remember in an interview Hitchens wanted to make the point that the US could never be defeated militarily, which is fine enough to say, but guerilla's with the support of the local population cannot be defeated militarily short of the "nuclear option." So the only option is to let the Iraqis sort it out and the sooner the better. It's a lose-lose situation most likely. The chances that civil war will break out eventually are high, US forces may be nothing more than a thumb at the dam.
posted by john at 9:33 PM on May 22, 2005

I became adept at not taking the measure of the left's mounting incoherence.
Apparently he is taking his own incoherence with him. He remains 'liberal,' yet is walking away from the "house the left built." I have no idea what this means. That he will now think for himself, perhaps? Bravo. What took so long? Didn't Mssrs. Clinton and Blair separate political liberalism from leftist dogma over a decade ago? Or does it mean that , because he doesn't like Sontag and Kennedy, that he will vote for Bush?
The whole concept that we can divide ourselves neatly into left/right is dated, as numerous MeFi posts have pointed out. It's a creation of political pundits that does not reflect most of our voting habits. The only ones I know who subscribe wholly to one ideological side or another are University activists and fundie Christians.
As a strong believer in free trade and [gasp] NAFTA, and a fervent Nader hater, I've felt less and less associated with the left also. Fuck if that means I'm voting for the Republicans.
posted by kanewai at 9:34 PM on May 22, 2005

arse_hat, cliche though it may be, I think it is true that it often takes more to live for something than to die for it.
posted by nanojath at 9:43 PM on May 22, 2005

nanojath - Just look at the language of love. People often say they will die for someone but how often do they say “I will forsake all others and raise children and educate them and spend the next 40 to 60 years with you?”
posted by arse_hat at 9:56 PM on May 22, 2005

I admit I agree with the author of the piece in parts, but using Chomsky and Gore Vidal to represent the left is like saying the republican party's best reps are Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.
posted by mathowie at 10:01 PM on May 22, 2005

Actually, metafilter has been the biggest motivation for me moving not quite right, but away from the left.

The problem as I see it for progressives is "The enemy of good is perfect."

It seems that if you don't toe the exact party line and live your life according to the progressive bible, your a fascist murdering bastard.

There seems to be no middle ground for the left anymore, and no room for dissent. I'm a gay man living in NYC, I'm pro-choice, don't own a car, believe that well managed taxation produces high quality of life and yet every time there is a SUV thread on metafilter and the invectives fly, I want nothing to do with that group of people.
posted by PissOnYourParade at 10:09 PM on May 22, 2005

I think you just have to realize that no matter what stance you take you're going to have a number of vocal douchebags for allies.
posted by furiousthought at 11:27 PM on May 22, 2005

I seems to be a common failing- we tend to want things in black and white. Our feckless leader sez, "with us or against us". Arse_hat seems to argue "This=brave, that=cowardice"

To get at the truth of a situation requires finesse, an ability to perceive where in the spectrum reality lies.

Arse_hat- I can see the truth in your statements, but that doesn't disallow all the other states along the axis of courageous -- craven
Calling on his stout heart, he pulled the trigger.
In desperate panic, he fired.
neither statement is necessarily T/F. They could both be true at the same instant. Or not.

on preview- what ft said.

Is it ON?
Is it OFF?
Reply
posted by pointilist at 11:36 PM on May 22, 2005

"Oh and about Brownback, the senator "best record on human rights"? "

Since when has your laundry list of welfare benefits and government-imposed mandates constituted "human rights?" You clearly don't know what the term means, as by your standards the Soviet Union and Cuba would be exemplars of human dignity in the 20th century.
posted by Goedel at 11:39 PM on May 22, 2005

I'm pro-choice, don't own a car, believe that well managed taxation produces high quality of life and yet every time there is a SUV thread on metafilter and the invectives fly

Reason for a lack of understanding: You don't have to spend time in traffic--as the driver of a vehicle--with SUVs all the time. It's a matter of perspective, at least a large part of the time. And do you really have any idea how ubiquitous they've been out in the interior? I read the NY Times article on NASCAR just yesterday--or about NASCAR's surge in the Northeast--and the author said most NASCAR watchers drive the same sorts of cars used. Pontiacs, Chevys, etc. No they don't. Think SUVs, many associated with foreign automakers.
posted by raysmj at 11:40 PM on May 22, 2005

some of us are skeptical about whether the U.S. Administration has the political will to accept self-determination when it might work against our best interests.

From the Los Angeles Times this week, U.S. Moves to Reassert Itself in Iraq Affairs:

Facing an intensifying insurgency and a frail government in Baghdad, the Bush administration has reluctantly changed course to deepen its involvement in the process of running Iraq.

U.S. officials are taking a more central and visible role in mediating among political factions, pushing for the government to be more inclusive and helping resuscitate public services. At the same time, Washington is maintaining pressure on Iraqi officials to upgrade the nation's fledgling security forces.

But I'm sure we'll turn over control of our troops in Afghanistan to Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, Hamid Karzai.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:06 AM on May 23, 2005

pointilist - “Arse_hat seems to argue "This=brave, that=cowardice"
Well, if I seem to argue “This=brave” then I have failed. I never meant to argue that any of the options (killing for a cause or dying for a cause) were brave. I apologize for my poor use of words. However, if you inferred that I find martyrdom (think Palestinian suicide bombers or the 9/11 hijackers) as cowards then you are not far off. I do not view the world as black and white but the aforementioned folk are certainly on the coward side of the equation.
posted by arse_hat at 12:09 AM on May 23, 2005

From looking at his site, I'm guessing this is purely a career move. If the articles and books linked to on his side bar are any indication he has been on the right for awhile, he probably is just trying to make a name for himself in conservative hack circles by claiming to be a recent convert. He obviously hasn't been on the left since Reagan.

If you think about its not a bad move, considering the ascendence of Fox news and the coming purge of PBS and NPR. He seems to be perfecting a special "battered men" victims groups thing too; To Be a Man: In Search of the Deep Masculine and Battered Men
Research reveals a secret side of domestic violence — women are doing the abusing too WTF?
posted by afu at 12:13 AM on May 23, 2005 [1 favorite]

I admit I agree with the author of the piece in parts, but using Chomsky and Gore Vidal to represent the left is like saying the republican party's best reps are Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.

Of for the love of Christ... are you seriously trying to compare one the world's foremost cognitive scientists (who has tenure at MIT) and a man who's written carefully researched and well-written hitories to that flesh-eating ghoul and that congenital retard?!

Give me a fucking break. There's no equivalence. The former pair evince education, critical skills and integrity of belief, while the latter are fucking mouth-breathers with an agenda.
posted by the_savage_mind at 12:40 AM on May 23, 2005

arse_hat- I'm just sayin if we aint there we don't know. I am sure you are right in some cases. I am sure you are wrong in some cases. More right than wrong? I am sure we cant know.
posted by pointilist at 12:44 AM on May 23, 2005

matt: I agree that Chomsky and Vidal aren't "the left" or necessarily sources of "left thinking" whatever that means..but they're not the same league of Coulter and Hannity. The difference is so staggering I wonder if you just copy'n'pasted that from a readybag of assertions..reasons for doing that escaping me.
posted by elpapacito at 2:58 AM on May 23, 2005

Parties are dead, long live the reclusive individual!
posted by Mick at 4:52 AM on May 23, 2005

It seems that there is a pattern in human political apathy; the current trend seems to be the demise of political parties and interest- the current motto does seem to be "Parties are dead, long live the reclusive individual!" Then, of course, the reclusive individuals begin to vote and to join political parties, until they split into individuals who abstain....
posted by malusmoriendumest at 6:18 AM on May 23, 2005

That sure was a long winded way of saying he's gotten more consersative as he's gotten older.
posted by Toecutter at 6:21 AM on May 23, 2005

Oh, what nonsense. Bullshit conservative tactic number 3,245: pretend you're a lefty who can't take it anymore when your very words show you're a lefty in the way Hitchens or David Aaranovitch is; i.e, not at all, or maybe just in your own mind.

This guy's words positively reek of deceitful neocon Orwellianism. "They hate George Bush more than they love freedom". Yeah, sure. Busted, you dishonest conservative idiot. Maybe you actually did delude yourself that you were left-lib for a while, but you really weren't, you know. Not if you're capable of expressing a view like that as anything other than satire. Next.
posted by Decani at 6:22 AM on May 23, 2005

(from Armando on Kos)

Red State and Powerline have a new champion, a David Horowitz wannabe named Keith Thompson:

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

... My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

... I began my activist career championing the 1968 presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, because both promised to end America's misadventure in Vietnam.

... I smile when friends tell me I've "moved right." I laugh out loud at what now passes for progressive on the main lines of the cultural left.

There is more pseudointellectual drivel there, but I have just 2 questions for this pale imitation of Horowitz:

(1) Did (and do) the people of Vietnam love freedom when he was cheering on Ho Chi Minh?

(2) What do the Swifties think when he tells them that their service was a "misadventure"?
posted by nofundy at 6:23 AM on May 23, 2005

nanojath - Just look at the language of love. People often say they will die for someone but how often do they say “I will forsake all others and raise children and educate them and spend the next 40 to 60 years with you?”

Arse_hat:

Ummm.... every time they get married? What's that, a few thousand a day? How many people actually do that dying thing, ya figger?

Well, we can settle the courage thing. I propose a duel of sorts: you and I face each other with a gun. If I have the courage to shoot you, I win. If you have the courage to shoot yourself, you win.

Of course its absurd (I actually think we're both nancies, so we'll probably just go and have a beer). So is your statement that martyrdom takes no courage. You haven't the faintest idea what it takes for someone to take their own life for the sake of a cause or belief ... Of course, on the other side, I don't know what it would take to actually pull a trigger on someone. For what it's worth: the only situation I could see myself killing another (or attempting to anyways, I am not very handy with a weapon) is if I feared for my own life. That's not bravery!

A pilot of a jet who drops a bomb vs. someone who flies the plane at the target taking their own life. The former happens all the time, and its relatively easy to recruit teenage Americans to do it. The latter is *considerably* rarer in the history of warfare, you must admit.
posted by bumpkin at 6:39 AM on May 23, 2005

I think you just have to realize that no matter what stance you take you're going to have a number of vocal douchebags for allies.

We have a winner. In general, ideologues tend to be self-righteous, doctrinaire, intolerant blowhards, or smug know-it-alls, be they left or right, and that alienates people.

I'm not saying that apathy is a good thing, but I'd venture that distaste (and distrust) for ideologues and zealots in a major root cause of it.
posted by jonmc at 6:49 AM on May 23, 2005

There seems to be no middle ground for the left anymore, and no room for dissent.

I do not necessarily disagree with this statement, but take a look at the right and tell me how there's more room for dissent over there.

I surely wish there were more room in American politics for people to find common cause, but to blame the polarization on the left is disingenuous. Perhaps blaming it on the right is equally so, but I'm pretty sure that the Republicans were pioneers in the use of the wedge issue, and they have never stopped looking for, finding, and using wedge issues to great advantage. Of course, the left plays right into their hands a lot of the time.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, but since the invasion of Iraq happened and can't unhappen, it would be better if everyone could work towards getting a functioning democracy over there and stop complaining about things that can't be undone. Surely, a world where the Iraqis can determine their own destinies is better than a world where they live under a dictator. I have not so much confidence in the current administration to do the right things to get a democracy working over there, but the left would be well-advised to help, rather than to appear to be sitting around and hoping for failure to get a campaign issue. That's just ghoulish.

Of course, the current administration rarely acts as though it wants help, but that's another story.
posted by anapestic at 7:44 AM on May 23, 2005

An aside on SUVs and New York City, as I also live in New York City.

There are lots of these units around here these days, certainly in trendoid Willilamsburg where I live. A few months ago, two squatters I know were hit by an SUV (the article says "car" but Fly told me herself it was "a woman in an SUV who just wasn't looking where she was going"). The talk around the bicyclists I know is that SUVs are particularly deadly -- they are so high up they can't see bikes well and being the largest thing on the road, they feel no need to pay attention to anything else or give right of way.

I've had two extremely bad experiences with SUVs in the city -- in particular, last year I was nudged by an SUV driver going (slowly) through a red light while talking on his cell phone and knocked on my ass (I was shaken but fine). He didn't even look up! He must have felt something...

And when I thumped on his car to get his attention, NOT destructively, he came running at me, full tilt, with obvious deadly intent, and I had to dodge cars and run across Eighth Avenue to get to two police officers (who, of course, were uninterested in doing anything, even though there were many witnesses).

This is anecdotal of course, but you'd have to be somewhat morally empty to own such a huge, wasteful vehicle unless you had a damned good reason to do, so the fact that SUV drivers apparently tend to exhibit other anti-social behaviours is scarcely surprising.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:57 AM on May 23, 2005

I have not so much confidence in the current administration to do the right things to get a democracy working over there, but the left would be well-advised to help . . .

The problem with that, of course, is some of us are of the opinion that the United States is inherently incapable of getting a democracy working in Iraq. As an invading force, we taint anything we do or any group we support with the air of collaboration. Not to mention that we are untrustworthy, with a history of supporting only democracies that elect those who serve us. You can disagree with this, but I hope you can also see how those who feel this way cannot "help"--there is no way to.
posted by dame at 8:15 AM on May 23, 2005

but take a look at the right and tell me how there's more room for dissent over there.

As someone who voted Republican for the first time last November (my previous voting record: Clinton '92; Browne '96; Nader '00), I can say with nothing short of awe that I have yet to encounter anyone who gives me grief about where I diverge politically from what some consider the standard GOP line: I'm not religious; I'm ferverently pro-birth control; I support gay marriage, etc.

Certainly, there are the doctrinaire on both sides, but even when I was a hardcore lefty, the evangelical Christian Republicans I encountered as an office temp many years ago at the American Legion were really nice. I abstained from any political discussion which I'm sure was a dead giveaway, but it was never a problem. No one snuck me off into the kitchen to try and convert me or scold me.
posted by gsh at 8:23 AM on May 23, 2005

You can disagree with this, but I hope you can also see how those who feel this way cannot "help"--there is no way to.

I see your point, but what's the alternative? Doing nothing is worse, seeing how we've created a big mess over there.

Some would say that it's the current administration, rather than the US generally, that's tainted and that a change of administration would have been the best way to proceed. I'm not sure whether that's true, but if the left feels that way, perhaps the best way to promote democracy in Iraq is to try to get the UN (or the EU, or somebody) to take control of building a democracy there. It is difficult to imagine the Bush administration agreeing to such a strategy, but better to promote that than to do nothing.
posted by anapestic at 8:28 AM on May 23, 2005

I can say with nothing short of awe that I have yet to encounter anyone who gives me grief about where I diverge politically from what some consider the standard GOP line: I'm not religious; I'm ferverently pro-birth control; I support gay marriage, etc.

Maybe you should talk to David Catania, who was booted from going to the GOP convention because he didn't toe the GOP line. There are plenty of other examples.

I have my own disagreements with the left, and in my own UU church (a bastion of liberalism if ever there was one) no one attempts to re-educate me. I have a lot of relatives on the right, and they're wonderful people, but there are equally wonderful people on the left.
posted by anapestic at 8:32 AM on May 23, 2005

I'd have to agree that it would be far more difficult to take my own life than someone else's. It's far less of an abstraction for one thing.

The thing that's scared me most about the idea of killing, combat, etc over the years is not that I think I'd have a hard time shooting someone else, but really, just how easy it would be. I've never really bought into the tired saw of "Oh, I'd have such a hard time shooting someone, it would have to be in self defense..."

Not to say that I don't BELIEVE that from a moral and ethical standpoint, just that I don't think it would be terrible difficult from a practical perspective.

Indeed, I see just how easy it could be, and the sheer physical ease with which one can take another's life is what is so very frightening. Couple that with immersive inescapable nationalist propaganda, and intensive combat training/desensitization/dehumanization, and we see why the history of killing and combat is what it is.

Shooting someone is the easy part. Living with yourself afterwards is where things get tough.
posted by stenseng at 8:48 AM on May 23, 2005

anapestic: I see your point, but what's the alternative? Doing nothing is worse, seeing how we've created a big mess over there.

I don't know. I think the fact that a super-majority of Iraqi's don't want us in Iraq, and don't feel safer due to our presence is a pretty strong argument that "doing nothing" (withdraw military forces from Iraq) may in fact be a good option. I think that there is a strong argument to be made that anybody but a bunch of cold-war facists should be involved in rebuilding Iraq.

gsh: Well, even with party affiliations, I almost always find it to be the case that politics gets more nutty and more divisive the higher up you get on the food chain. I've found most voters are really moderate and civil, while congress critters get more and more rabid the more you go up the food chain.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:53 AM on May 23, 2005

Thanks for that Communitarian link, amberglow.

But still, I don't know what you people are talking about: Noam Chomsky is not all that leftist, and Vidal, like Nader, is basically a slightly-left-of-center early-20th-century LaFollete -style Progressive. .

Put it this way folks: Bill and Hillary Clinton are RIGHT-wing, and they're commonly recognized as such in countries with broad multi-party parliamentary systems like those in pre-1991 NATO Europe. Digest that fact, and this: in American terms Mussolini would be a "mainstream Democrat" -- like Bill Clinton.

So most of the people Americans call "liberal" or "leftist" (as if they're synonyms, which they're not) are really "moderate conservatives"; the US' admitted right-wingers are pretty frigging far to the Right -- like Franco or Mobutu. (The big difference between Dubya and those guys is that he bombs foreigners, and in their own countries yet.)

People who call the Clintons "dangerous socialist radicals" have no idea what they're talking about -- and those who get their political "views" from pillhead Limbaugh and his ilk are too damn stupid to ever learn any better. Both US "major parties" are rightist.

For those who need to know what a moderate centrist is like, I refer you to the Lyndons, Johnson and LaRouche .
posted by davy at 9:06 AM on May 23, 2005

Also, given the last 10 years of history, claiming a left-wing homogeny seems rather odd. A large chunk of what is going on politically is due to the failure of the Democrats to rebuild a coalition that Clinton effectively shattered between his philandering and pandering. Among many people, Clinton's actions led to a crisis of consience as to whether to hold our noses to vote for corrupt party leadership, or take our votes elsewhere.

Now we have an administration implicated in much worse crimes than Clinton, worse crimes than Bush, perhaps even overshadowing Nixon. We have a scummy house leadership as well, but I'm not seeing any crisis of consience from Republicans.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:17 AM on May 23, 2005

http://www.thompsonatlarge.com/bio.htm -- the guy hasn't been in "the left" since his teens or early 20's. It sounds like his partner divorced him and he didn't get custody. That helped move him from center to right. This sounds far-fetched, but a friend of mine went through the same thing.
posted by Cassford at 9:47 AM on May 23, 2005

What happened to the liberal 'free thinker'? Burn this guy. He has to be a republican who has disguised himself as a dem. Or he's an idiot. Or he's not important..

while the latter are fucking mouth-breathers with an agenda.

Oh, beautiful irony.

This is anecdotal of course, but you'd have to be somewhat morally empty to own such a huge, wasteful vehicle unless you had a damned good reason to do, so the fact that SUV drivers apparently tend to exhibit other anti-social behaviours is scarcely surprising.

Wow, I'm speechless. The fringe are going to kill the left.

Simper Fi!
< / liberal humor>

Me thinks you left out the humor part.
posted by justgary at 9:52 AM on May 23, 2005

Anapestic: It is a bitter pill to swallow, but since the invasion of Iraq happened and can't unhappen, it would be better if everyone could work towards getting a functioning democracy over there and stop complaining about things that can't be undone.

Agreed, but highlighting the lies that Bush told to get us in this mess, as well as making sure our media reports about the daily casualties, will help us prevent Bush and his cronies from invading other countries. All of this was avoidable. That said, what is done is done, but we can still avoid future war crimes.
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:56 AM on May 23, 2005

Ach! He is the Keith Thompson of the 80's "Men's Movement." He was close with Robert Bly. All of that drumming and crying was not in the least bit progressive from where I sit. Every man I ever met in that movement was a conservative whose wife/girlfriend had left him. Sympathy for one's self does not equate with empathy for others.
posted by Cassford at 10:04 AM on May 23, 2005

Davy has eloquently summed up how I feel about most people's discussions of "left" and "right" -- the idea that the Clintons represent anything even APPROACHING leftist politics is ridiculous. The fact that they are held up as these socialist antichrists is offensive to people who hold socialist thought near and dear.

/derail and pet peeve airing
posted by trey at 10:12 AM on May 23, 2005

There seems to be no middle ground for the left anymore, and no room for dissent. I'm a gay man living in NYC, I'm pro-choice, don't own a car, believe that well managed taxation produces high quality of life and yet every time there is a SUV thread on metafilter and the invectives fly, I want nothing to do with that group of people.

So in other words. Since these people who agree with you annoy you, you're going to stop agreeing with them.

Smart!
posted by delmoi at 10:16 AM on May 23, 2005

So in other words. Since these people who agree with you annoy you, you're going to stop agreeing with them.

No, we're going to let them know that they annoy us, since if they're annoying people who agree with them, then imagine what they're doing to everyone else, especially those who haven't formed opinions on a subject yet. See where we're going with this or are you more concerned with self-satisfaction than actual communication?
posted by jonmc at 10:22 AM on May 23, 2005

Oh, beautiful irony.

Do you even know what that word means? Because I described the difference between the mouth-breathers and the non-mouth-breathers (Chomsky and Vidal) as hinging on the latter actually forming their opinions based on research and logic. Granted, I didn't spell it out... but it's quite heavily implied. The further (and no less-obvious) implication is that the former resort to neither tactic. They open their mouths and bray, like the human jackasses they are. Certainly they have both been caught in so many lies it should be a miracle that they get television time. And yet they keep getting air to assert the lies even after they have been exposed.

So if I'm a mouth-breather, what exactly is someone who can't even pick up my far-from-subtle implication? Who can't even muster a single word in construction of, hm, an actual argument? Or was the argumentation, y'know, implied? If so, please spell it out for the mouth-breathers among you.
posted by the_savage_mind at 10:28 AM on May 23, 2005

The whole anti-SUV thing doesn'’t really have much to do with political ideology, it's just that SUV's annoy people. SUV's just irritate me, especially the huge ones like the suburban. I vary rarely see them full of people or kids or hauling a boat.

I don't think SUV's are evil or anything like that, but they are just irritating on a visceral level.

But the weirdest thing is that it seems like people need to "label" themselves in a certain group. Why? Why not just vote for whoever seems to make the most sense? For me, that’s the democrats. Not that I like the democrats, especially Kerry, but yeah.

If people like John McCain were running the Republican Party I’d probably vote for them. But they're not. I guess that makes me a "liberal" because I hate bush.

There are shrill people on the left and the right, and I can’t believe that people seem to think that the left has an overabundance of shrillness. It seems that some people just want to "belong" to something, and find the republicans more enjoyable to belong to.

In that case, you’re an idiot.
posted by delmoi at 10:41 AM on May 23, 2005

There are shrill people on the left and the right, and I can’t believe that people seem to think that the left has an overabundance of shrillness.

What we're saying is that we'd like our side to be less shrill (to say nothing of rigid and smug) so we could actually get into a position to accomplish something.
posted by jonmc at 10:46 AM on May 23, 2005

What we're saying is that we'd like our side to be less shrill (to say nothing of rigid and smug) so we could actually get into a position to accomplish something.

Are you saying the right these days isn't smug? Political "sides" are made up of individuals, adn there are always going to be annoying hardliners. The insane shrillness of the right ("You can't support the troups if you don't support their Commander in Cheif!") didn't cause them any problems.
posted by delmoi at 10:52 AM on May 23, 2005

using Chomsky and Gore Vidal to represent the left is like saying the republican party's best reps are Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity

Wouldn't it be more like saying the Republican party's best reps are David Brooks or Leo Strauss?
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:58 AM on May 23, 2005

>I can say with nothing short of awe that I have yet to >encounter anyone who gives me grief about where I >diverge politically from what some consider the standard >GOP line: I'm not religious; I'm ferverently pro-birth >control; I support gay marriage, etc.

Maybe you should talk to David Catania, who was booted from going to the GOP convention because he didn't toe the GOP line. There are plenty of other examples.
posted by anapestic at 8:32 AM PST on May 23

Huh? Or you could talk to Rudy Giulani, Pataki, Swarzenegger, etc. who are all various levels of social liberals who don't fit in the doctrinaire Republican image. Or you could look at Keynote speaker who was a Democrat. The Republican party has a on-going rift between them regarding social issues and big-government issues, but they treat the issues as issues and don't take the mentality that many on the left advocate: if you don't agree with the party line in totality, then you are a traitor. Giulani is still treated as Republican even though he disagrees with a lot of the issues of the "social conservatives."

Whereas on the left, if you deign to disagree, you get accused of being a Republican all along (Liberman, the guy above's rant about the Clintons, the comments regarding this author, etc.)

This is reminds me of when Hitchens left the Nation. Hitchens was one of the biggest and most well known lefties while writing for decades at the Nation. He was a Trotskyite. But when we leaves the Nation, for the same reasons that the author of the article in this FPP cites, he gets called a closet conservative. People say of him, "He was never a lefty anyhow," and all manner of utter nonsense. He is treated as an apostate. Though for decades the "liberal" position was to support the Kurds and other oppressed minorities, suddenly it became the "right-winger" perspective. It is such Stalinist nonsense. In Stalin's Party, the biggest crime one could commit is to be an apostate, a traitor to the cause. That same mentality is on the left here (and some posters in this thread have exhibited it).

In reality, the right has flaws too. But the left has become so shrill, incoherent, and unprincipled that it is not surprising left-leaning people are rejecting it. At the least the Right seems to have principles and are acting on them in terms of international relations.. What does the left the stand for? In foreign policy terms, it seems to be a status quo force. One has to be amazed that in this country the left has become a status quo force and the right has become the party that seeks to advance democracy.

I say this not as a rightwinger (I'm not one anyhow, but the mentality that we are addressing results in that label being applied to me), but as someone who would have thought this kind of view of the Left as espoused by the writer was already self-evident and one of the most annoying things about modern politics. It is so prevalent here on Metafilter, that the author could use this website an example of his thesis.
posted by dios at 11:05 AM on May 23, 2005

but if the left feels that way, perhaps the best way to promote democracy in Iraq is to try to get the UN (or the EU, or somebody) to take control of building a democracy there.

The thing is, from my point of view, you can't impose democracy. Neither the EU nor the the UN can build democracy. Only the Iraqis can. And any group of foreigners with guns is going to make that harder. As it stands, we would be better off saying we were assholes, leaving, and then providing financial support when the Iraqis get it together. If we really gave a shit about Iraqi democracy, we never would have spent ten years destroying its middle class. But we did. And now you can't get there from here.
posted by dame at 11:09 AM on May 23, 2005

The Iraqi "elections" were a joke. Anybody who thinks it's a success to force a country to vote for people that we pick and choose for them is no longer needed on the Left anyway.
posted by rougy at 6:48 PM PST on May 22

Supporting nascent steps toward democracy and liberty means that one shouldn't be considered on the left?

This is utterly incoherent.

And how exactly did the US "pick and choose" the people who were voted for. It is clear from the articles that I read that the Iraqi people picked their own candidates and voted for them. This idea that we "installed" the people who were democratically elected is just factually hogwash. It just smacks of a desperate desire to downplay any foreign success out of a hatred of Bush that so permeates the Left and is pointed out by this author and Hitchens.
posted by dios at 11:11 AM on May 23, 2005

The insane shrillness of the right ("You can't support the troups if you don't support their Commander in Chief!")

The dynamic is different. With left-wing man-on-the-street types, it's pretty easy to get them to call you a fascist to your face, while leftish talking heads are usually real polite. With the right wing, these roles are reversed. I've lived in Texas for ten years straight now and the only time I've had anyone call me a commie was when my brother was flirting with libertarianism.
posted by furiousthought at 11:11 AM on May 23, 2005

I say this not as a rightwinger (I'm not one anyhow

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh God, thanks for that, dios. I needed it badly. Frankly, I'd love for the author to come 'research' this website. It would be a pleasure to watch folks rip his tissue of lies apart.

As for your questions on the election in Iraq, I suggest you actually do a little reading to find out it wasn't a general election. It was an election to fill a temporary group. In many cases the people running couldn't even put their names on the public lists for fear of their lives. Also, Ahmad Chalabi did not get his post as Minister of Oil because the general Iraqi population wanted him there. His fellow Neocons from the States wanted him there.

The election was a farce. The current situation where the US is now stepping back into decision making positions for the government is a farce. The entire invasion was a farcical concept based on the facts that were known ahead of time. This interference will not result in healthy Democracy. In fact, Iraq is today closer to civil war than it has been at any time in recent memory. The Shia and the Sunni are boiling towards conflict, despite what your non-Newsweek sources may tell you. Turkey has begun rearming and remobilizing on their Kurdish front.

It is a complete and total clusterfuck. Our own generals keep coming out and saying that. Get a God-damned clue, why don't you. You may actually believe you aren't right wing, but your incessant defense of the indefensible policies put forward by the right wing says differently.
posted by the_savage_mind at 11:19 AM on May 23, 2005

Anarchist=Liberal in leather jacket

Nope. Anarchist = Unpropertied libertarian.

As kozad said, "a mish-mash of complaints". In the end, given his change of heart, I'd be more interested in where he's going to rather than where he's come from.

I would be interested in either where he's going or where's he's come from, but he gives us neither. He makes me suspect that this is just a ploy to get a book deal or something.

So where is his "leftist" CV, or is he just talking about the Democratic party? In the latter case, I scoff.

Oh.

My writing over the past decade largely focuses on cultural developments — like public schools stupidly deciding to get rid of recess; court rulings that give dads new standing in custody decisions; efforts to bring the principle of victim restitution into the criminal justice system; the ethics of human cloning.

The focus of my current political thinking is liberalism and its future. I'm in the early stages of writing a book about saying adios to the left, without specifically heading right.

Oh.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:22 AM on May 23, 2005

Laugh all you want, savage_mind. I'm such a right-winger that I didn't vote for Bush. I'm a lax Christian. I'm socially liberal, but authoritarian and majoritarian (I don't care what is allowed or not, but I believe in enforcing whatever rule we set). I'm small government and believe in personal responsibility. And I'm hawkish internationally-we have the power and I think we should (and do) use it for good. It used to be that "using the U.S.'s power to spread liberty" was a liberal idea. See, e.g., Scoop Jackson. Those on the right wing think I'm a DLC hack. But whatever.

I don't really care how you identify me politically because I know that as long as I am not some ultra-liberal lockstep identity-politics automaton, you will call me a rightwinger. That says more about your intolerance and demonization of the Other, than it does about my actual political views. It really is a "with us or against us" view on the Left. Woe to be apostate....

As for the Iraqi elections, all of your assertions that we chose the leaders is unsubstantiated. I have not seen any person I would consider an unbiased observer suggest that the elections were a fraud.
posted by dios at 11:30 AM on May 23, 2005

dios: Huh? Or you could talk to Rudy Giulani, Pataki, Swarzenegger, etc. who are all various levels of social liberals who don't fit in the doctrinaire Republican image. Or you could look at Keynote speaker who was a Democrat. The Republican party has a on-going rift between them regarding social issues and big-government issues, but they treat the issues as issues and don't take the mentality that many on the left advocate: if you don't agree with the party line in totality, then you are a traitor. Giulani is still treated as Republican even though he disagrees with a lot of the issues of the "social conservatives."

Well, I think there is a bit of a myth here in that we can make a nice easy mapping between Democrat=Liberal/Republican=Conservative. Zell Miller for example is a conservative Democrat. Giulani and Swarzenegger are compromises because they win elections in areas where social conservative issues don't play well. Both have drawn criticism for not being conservative enough, and in areas where Republicans have a strong advantage, there are active campains to replace moderates with harder conservatives.

Though for decades the "liberal" position was to support the Kurds and other oppressed minorities, suddenly it became the "right-winger" perspective.... One has to be amazed that in this country the left has become a status quo force and the right has become the party that seeks to advance democracy.

Well, this is a nice bait and switch. In fact this is nothing new. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration was all about "advancing democracy" in Central America. However, the methods by which it did so was through training and supporting terrorist death squads. Meanwhile, the right seems to be pretty picky and choosy about when and where it seeks to advance democracy. The Taliban once upon a time were praised by the right as an example of how religious law could have desirable social effects.

The reason why the left is skeptical of this administration's "nation building" in Iraq, is because we remember the way in which we built wonderful democracies in Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatamala, Chille, Iran, and Vietnam. While the conservatives point to Germany and Japan, they don't acknowledge that most of our Imperial history has been pretty dismal at creating long-term stable democracies. Primarily because long-term stable democracies and local autonomy is not in the best interest of those who pay the bills.

And for something completely different...

"SUVs are gross because they are the solution to a gross problem (how to make minivans look more masculine.)"
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:37 AM on May 23, 2005

Whoops, the above by Paul Graham.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:37 AM on May 23, 2005

The Republican party has a on-going rift between them regarding social issues and big-government issues, but they treat the issues as issues and don't take the mentality that many on the left advocate: if you don't agree with the party line in totality, then you are a traitor.

You are? Could you provide some refrences for this rediculous claim? Treated as a traiter by whome?
posted by delmoi at 11:40 AM on May 23, 2005

Frankly, I'd love for the author to come 'research' this website. It would be a pleasure to watch folks rip his tissue of lies apart.

Exactly so. This bears repeating:

I have just 2 questions for this pale imitation of Horowitz:

(1) Did (and do) the people of Vietnam love freedom when he was cheering on Ho Chi Minh?

(2) What do the Swifties think when he tells them that their service was a "misadventure"?

Lying asshole. Sounds like dios above with this:

I say this not as a rightwinger (I'm not one anyhow

And I'm not opposed to fundies either folks! No, really! ;-)
posted by nofundy at 11:49 AM on May 23, 2005

delmoi, read the thread. I didn't mean traitor in the federal law sense of giving away nuclear secrets. I meant it in its literal sense of "traitor to the cause." Hitchens, this writer, etc. They are all people who claim to hold left values, but are considered traitors or not really left-minded because they don't accept the totality of the Left line.
posted by dios at 11:50 AM on May 23, 2005

Huh? Or you could talk to Rudy Giulani, Pataki, Swarzenegger, etc. who are all various levels of social liberals who don't fit in the doctrinaire Republican image. Or you could look at Keynote speaker who was a Democrat.

gsh was saying that no Republicans had ever treated him badly because he doesn't agree to the hardcore right agenda, and I was pointing out that there are counterexamples. It was really not that difficult of a point to understand: there are tolerant and intolerant people on both sides.
posted by anapestic at 11:51 AM on May 23, 2005

PissOnYourParade:
Actually, metafilter has been the biggest motivation for me moving not quite right, but away from the left...It seems that if you don't toe the exact party line and live your life according to the progressive bible, your a fascist murdering bastard.
Forget ideology - there are anonymous blowhards on every internet forum. Being called fascist is rough, but try putting even a moderately leftist post on an unmoderated right-leaning site ... and watch the death threats pour in.
posted by kanewai at 11:54 AM on May 23, 2005

As for your questions on the election in Iraq, I suggest you actually do a little reading to find out it wasn't a general election. It was an election to fill a temporary group.

And they're running out of time. Five months to the Constitutional referendum! I guess the From the Wilderness guy was right.
posted by mrgrimm at 12:05 PM on May 23, 2005

A friend of mine sent me an email through his right wing mail-ring, that I thought I would share..

"Pretty interesting...and, like the book Catch-22, on the first read, its pretty funny:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_ferguson&sid=aykaMi3feMk0

However - again like Catch-22 - on the second read, you discern that there's no real difference between these worn-out parties. Of course, limited as we are by the practicalities to these two, the Republicans are obviously for choice, because they realize that THERE WILL BE WAR and its better to be the top dog in such an environment (I'd run a book on how many centuries we will be fighting the Islafundies, but I won't be around to collect...).

Time for some new parties. The left can gravitate to the Watermelons (the Green Party -- "Green on the outside, Red on the inside") and, if they get in and denude the military in favor of sustainable energy resources, we will wake up one day and find that we've built an eco-paradise for the benefit of the Central and South American Socialist Coalition, led by dictator Chavez.

I've registered as an independent, because there's no right wing party for such as me, now that the Repubs have sold themselves to the Christofundies and big oil (the Bayoil thing is as slimy as Hillary at Waco). The Libertarian Party (as distinct from a libertarian philosophy) have dogmatized themselves into some ridiculous positions, and can't be taken seriously, although voting for their candidates may begin to send a message. Maybe we should start a new party. Or resurrect one. How about the Federalist Party? or the Conservative Party of the United States (suspect that name may already be taken)? Tories for Liberty?"

It is happening on the right, too.. disillusionment, and no where else to go.

It's comming to a head, but I guess we'll see what becomes of it.
posted by Balisong at 12:08 PM on May 23, 2005

This guy's words positively reek of deceitful neocon Orwellianism. "They hate George Bush more than they love freedom". Yeah, sure. Busted, you dishonest conservative idiot.

If the opinion and tone represented above in any way approximate the majority opinion and tone of the Democrats come 2008, then the Republicans will win the 2008 election. Someone save this comment so you can hail me as a prophet later.
posted by Krrrlson at 12:33 PM on May 23, 2005

so, this guy is more of a Pat Buchanan Republican, a Rick Santorum Republican, a Grover Norquist Republican, or Republican like these guys?
posted by amberglow at 12:47 PM on May 23, 2005

Dios, as usual, you're full of shit. Firstly, there is no "left line." You've got many disparate groups - Howard Dean/Moveon progressive movement, the Ralph Nader/Green Party/ "None of the above" folks, centrist labor democrats, center right DLC dems (the Clintonistas)

As a member of the vast "leftist line" I'll tell you what I have in common with "the left".

I distrust attempts to consolidate rightfully separated powers to the executive.

I distrust and condemn corporate war adventuring for profit by means of whatever bullshit rationale of the week is selling (wmds, spreading democracy,) and I believe lying to America, to the Congress, to our troops, and to the world about why we went to war is a high crime, and I believe George W. Bush should be impeached, and ideally stand trial. Further, from a moral standpoint, I believe that the blood of our troops and Iraq's people is on his and his cronie's hands, and if there is a God, they will have to answer for their actions in the afterlife.

I distrust a president who sells himself as a "compassionate conservative", a "person of principle", a "defender of the culture of life" and a "uniter" yet pursues the most heartless, greedy, bloodthirsty, unprincipled, and corrupt domestic and foreign policies since the golden age of the robber barons.

And on that subject, we on the left have nothing but distrust and contempt for people who deal in callow empty orwellian "newspeak" terminology such as

healthy forests initiative
clear skies initiative
no child left behind
homeland security
enemies of freedom
enemy combatants
culture of life

Further, I'm sick of, and call bullshit on the continual attempt by members of the slavering right, Dios included, to cast spurious moral equivalencies between figures and ideas on the left, with those on the right.

Michael Moore != Ann Coulter.

Michael Moore does his research, and at least makes an attempt to defend his facts. More importantly, HE DOESN'T FUCKING INCITE VIOLENCE AND HATRED AGAINST OTHER CULTURES, OKAY?

He asks questions about who we are, what we're doing, whether we're justified in doing it, and who has to sacrifice and pay for our mistakes.

Ann Coulter suggests we kill muslims, carpet bomb their cities, convert them to Christianity, violently silence dissent domestically, and generally advocates for American Fascism while intentionally cheapening and coarsening the public discourse.

You find me one good goddamned example of Michael Moore inciting violence against ANYONE, and I'll eat ten hats.

Further, people on the "left" don't hate George Bush for any arbitrary and capricious reasons, they hate him because he's pursued the most dangerous corporatist, warmongering, hateful, socially nutty policies in a hundred years, and continues to do so at the impending peril of our fragile republic.

There's a name for people who hate George W. Bush. They're called Patriots.

The big game of the weasels on the right is to continually draw false moral equivalencies core to a cynical campaign of wearing out the American voter, while debasing the realm of what's socially acceptable, knowing that if they can get the average guy to think there's no difference between the two groups ethically speaking, half will vote for the one that seems "tougher", and the other half won't vote at all.

I call bullshit on that whole game Dios, and I call bullshit on you, and I'll continue to do so, so long as you keep spouting false equivalencies and general neocon horseshit.
posted by stenseng at 12:47 PM on May 23, 2005

dios: Hitchens, this writer, etc. They are all people who claim to hold left values, but are considered traitors or not really left-minded because they don't accept the totality of the Left line.

Actually, from what I can tell. Hitchens positioned himself as an outsider. There is support for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq no matter where you look at the political spectrum. (For that matter, there is no lack of resistance to the war on the right.) However, Hitchens did his best to burn his bridges by insisting that nothing less than whole-hearted support of military interventionism in the name of "democracy" was acceptable. Once there, he insisted that everyone whe disagreed with cowboy diplomacy was opposed to liberty and freedom, rather than disagreeing on the best way to obtain liberty and freedom.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:50 PM on May 23, 2005

Dios, as usual, you're full of shit. Firstly, there is no "left line." .....I call bullshit on that whole game Dios, and I call bullshit on you, and I'll continue to do so, so long as you keep spouting false equivalencies and general neocon horseshit.
posted by stenseng at 12:47 PM PST on May 23

Yeah, because I am the one who wrote that article, so clearly I am the one that created this idea of a Left. It wasn't the article that first proposed the idea, and there were at least a half dozen people before me making the same point in this thread. And there aren't numerous others (Hitchens, et. al.) who made the point. It's all mine. I have masterminded this whole dichotomy.

But don't let that stop you from making me your boogeyman stand-in for all non-leftists.
posted by dios at 12:54 PM on May 23, 2005

Kirk, Hitchens has made it clear that he believes the Left betrayed its own principles, he didn't betray the Left. There was a time where the Left was in solidarity with people like the Kurds-dispossesed people who suffered under tyranny. There were the Scoop Jackson Democrats who understood that all these fancy liberal values of freedom and equality are meaningless unless we are prepared to fight for them for people outside this country. So, in his article leaving the Nation, Hitchens made it clear that he could not tolerate being a part of a magazine which had become a status quo oppositionist force that would rather make weak equivalence arguments instead of making a principled stand for freedom and against tyranny where it is found.
posted by dios at 1:00 PM on May 23, 2005

Dios, do you really, honestly believe in your heart of hearts that what Bush and company have us doing in Iraq is now and was intended from the start as a principled stand for freedom and against tyrrany where it is found?
posted by stenseng at 1:04 PM on May 23, 2005

You are missing the point. It is an act of liberation against tyranny. It is a good thing. I support the liberaiton of the Iraqi people from Saddam's iron thumb. Just as I would anywhere else. The result is what it is important to me.

But you want me to focus on Bush's motivations because thats where political points can be scored. And that is what so frustratingly disgusting about the opposition in this country: they can't admit that the result was the right thing because then they lose the political argument. Nevertheless, to answer the question you really are asking me: yes, I think Bush (and Wolfowitz has been sayin this since the 80's) that Democracy would benefit the Middle East. Was it his primary concern? Maybe, but maybe not. To me it doesn't matter. Things don't have one reason or one justification. Was liberation the ground that the Bush administration relied on as the primary reason? No. And that is to the Administration's fault. Their problem is how they packaged this action, not in the action itself. My guess is that they made a cold, realpolitik decision to promote the WMD justification as the main one. That was stupid. But that it was the primary justification doesn't mean there weren't secondary ones. And one of them was the liberation of the people. And that was enough for me.
posted by dios at 1:16 PM on May 23, 2005

To put this Thompson in the same bucket with Hitchens is unfair to Hitchens. I'm not crazy about Hitchens' rightward turn, but at least he actually had a history of being progressive before he turned to the center. Thompson appears to have been a young centrist Democrat at best. His "progressivism" seems to have been limited to working for "men's liberation."

A review of one of the essays from his To Be a Man (from 1991) says it all: "[this] manifesto for male liberation is at once angry and whining in its denial that men are privileged by society and its indictment of the women's movement for ignoring how men feel. Thompson's piece discussing the need for all-male sanctuaries is unctuous--a tone infecting most of the work."
posted by Cassford at 1:18 PM on May 23, 2005

Scoop Jackson Democrats...oh brother. Former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle, learned at the knee of Jackson, as did a lot of other hawkish Republicans. It was a different world. What's next? Let's celebrate all of those Horace Greeley Republicans!
posted by Cassford at 1:24 PM on May 23, 2005

Okay, that's a reasonable response, and I understand it, if I disagree with your rationale.

Let me ask you this then. Are the people of Iraq better off now, than they were before our intervention? If so, by what metric? Are they free now?

Is a free Iraq truly worth the cost in American lives? In Iraqi lives? In the sheer enormous monetary cost to be shouldered by American citizens?

If so, should we proceed on a grand international scale "fighting for freedom, and against tyrrany" across the globe? If not, why not?

Does it not strike you as suspect that folks in the Bush administration who are now so very concerned with spreading freedom and democracy, have served in many other Republican administrations, and in doing so, have supported many tyrranical regimes across the globe, (including Hussein's Iraq) often including subverting democratically elected leaders and governments?

Next, are YOU willing to personally fight for Iraqis to be free? If not, why not?

Also, let me ask you this - There is strong if not overwhelming evidence that the motivation for our intervention in Iraq at least as far as Bush and his friends in energy and military-industrial are concerned, was about profit and control of resources, and the subsequent justifications, freedom, wmds, etc. have been just that.

If this potential profit motive is indeed the case, even if you think the net result (a free democratic Iraq) is worth the risks and costs, can you understand why this is upsetting to many Americans?
posted by stenseng at 1:33 PM on May 23, 2005

dios: Kirk, Hitchens has made it clear that he believes the Left betrayed its own principles, he didn't betray the Left. There was a time where the Left was in solidarity with people like the Kurds-dispossesed people who suffered under tyranny. There were the Scoop Jackson Democrats who understood that all these fancy liberal values of freedom and equality are meaningless unless we are prepared to fight for them for people outside this country. So, in his article leaving the Nation, Hitchens made it clear that he could not tolerate being a part of a magazine which had become a status quo oppositionist force that would rather make weak equivalence arguments instead of making a principled stand for freedom and against tyranny where it is found.

From what I can tell, this seems to be largely a rationalization. Believe it or not, there are people on the left who will reluctantly agree with the claim that the war is necessary on humanitarian grounds. So he is to some degree knocking down a straw dog of his own creation.

The problem with this argument is that it just doesn't match the facts. So you want to make a principled stand for freedom and against tyrany where it is found. Then why show solidarity with Iraqi Kurds while selling out Turkish Kurds? Where is the principled stand for freedom and against tyrany when it is found in the war criminals in our own administration? And how do you deal with Hitchens' own statements that the US and GB should not tolerate a democratically elected regime if it goes against the best interests of the US?

You are missing the point. It is an act of liberation against tyranny. It is a good thing. I support the liberaiton of the Iraqi people from Saddam's iron thumb. Just as I would anywhere else. The result is what it is important to me.

I don't think that this is a moot point, and the reality of this claim needs to be examined in regards to our earlier forms of "liberation." If you are in favor of military intervention for liberation against tyrany, then why not the Kurds in Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

I don't know anybody who disagrees that regime change was a good thing. (Although opinions vary wildly on how we should have gone about it.) The problem is that while the people in the administration tend to talk big in regards to democracy, they rarely deliver when it comes down to choosing between democracy and American interests. Ask the dissidents who were targeted by American-funded torture and death squads in Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua about the U.S. goverment's commitment to free speech, due process and democracy.

There just seems to be a huge gaping blind spot in Hitchins cognitive dissonance in that he still regards Kissenger as a war criminal for crimes in the 70s, but doesn't seem to mind rubbing elbows with Nergoponte, Abrams and Poindexter who were involved in similar crimes in the 80s.

The bottom line is that while we have accomplished regime change, we have not liberated Iraq. Given past history, there is not much reason to believe we won't put in a friendly strongman.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:38 PM on May 23, 2005

Do the ends justify the means always, Dios?

Say I want $500,000 I could work for it, and pay taxes on it and maybe even get it in 10-30 years. Or I could go out and rob a bank. Or just break into several houses on my street. There's some old widdowed ladies on my street who'se matress is probably bulging with cash.

Either way I get $500,000. So it doesn't really matter HOW I get it, just so long as I have the will and determination to go through with whatever it takes to get it.

That's a pretty good analogy with this current administration, without the widdowed elderly strawman, and without the $500,000 in the black.
posted by Balisong at 1:41 PM on May 23, 2005

Er .. With widdowed, elderly, Iraqi Strawmen, and with $500,000+ profit for my war-corporate brothers.
posted by Balisong at 1:47 PM on May 23, 2005

Is a free Iraq truly worth the cost in American lives?

Absolutely. (Though I know that I will receive the inevitable response of chickenhawk by so answering).

In Iraqi lives?

I don't know how to answer this. I am prepared to accept the consequences of the action as the result is a good. At some point the calculus shifts. Killing everyone there would be the logical end point, and at some point between there and here, the cost-benefit would shift. I don't think we are anywhere close to there yet. And I would point out that continuing Iraqi deaths are largely coming from terrorists, not the US military.

In the sheer enormous monetary cost to be shouldered by American citizens?

Any discussion of the financial aspects makes me ill. I can't believe our own economics self-interest would dictate my committment that people should have liberation. And to be honest, it is the one argument by the opposition that I find to be the most revolting. It smacks of "Lets spend our money on something insipid like prescription drugs for seniors instead of helping others." The United States is the greatest accumulation of wealth the world has ever seen. It ought to be used somewhat for something other than making our lives even easier. I think this is also partially the reason you see people like the author of the article get disenchanted with the rhetoric of a political side. It so about so much about

Next, are YOU willing to personally fight for Iraqis to be free? If not, why not

I'm not answering that argument because I find the whole chickenhawk thing to be a red herring. I will offer them my support morally and financially. If I can't offer it physically, it doesn't thereby debase my opinion.

As to all the questions regarding Halliburton, etc., I find them to be an anemic response. The statement "26 million Iraqis are now free to vote for self-determination without fear of death from their dictator" is not rebutted by "But Halliburton got a no-bid contract." It is a matter of emphasis. If the latter of those two things is more important to you than the former, than I submit your emphasis is in the wrong place.

Do not make the best the enemy of the good. Could everything been done better? Yes. But there is a good. And its really good.
posted by dios at 1:56 PM on May 23, 2005

Both the "left" and the "right" need each other to sustain themselves as the only given alternatives. Identity politics, based on the branding principals of marketing dominate public discourse instead of competing ideas for best public policy. It seems to me that the future hinges on forward looking individual intelligence, integrity, and determination to evolve a new system.
posted by semmi at 2:04 PM on May 23, 2005

Or, more specifically, what if I offered $500,000 to "The Cause" whether that cause is split between, $5,000 to the party, $2,000 to every specific candidate, $10,000 to "Swifties for Truth", Another $10,000 to Focus on the Family, Another 10K to "Tomatoes against Hines", 10K to the Hilary Clinton Advisory Watch", 10K to the "End Republican harassment legal defense fund" to curtail any questioning of how I got the money, and so on.

It's not like those people care how I got the money. And if they found out, all I would have to do is point to my record of who I support to get an Avoid Scrutiny Free card.

Well, you know where I'm going with this, so I'll spare you...
Consider it a gift. Tax deductable.
posted by Balisong at 2:04 PM on May 23, 2005

Identity politics, based on the branding principals of marketing dominate public discourse instead of competing ideas for best public policy.

Amen.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 2:05 PM on May 23, 2005

I find it interesting that you can mentally juggle a cost benefit analysis in thousands of human lives, Iraqi and American, yet find discussion of the monetary costs distasteful.

Where do you think this money is going to come from? Do you think there will be no real-world impact from this enormous debt? In what way are prescription-drug benefits for seniors "insipid"? Further, in what way are providing said benefits not "helping others?"

"The United States is the greatest accumulation of wealth the world has ever seen. It ought to be used somewhat for something other than making our lives even easier."

So you're advocating the redistribution of wealth to better benefit humanity? You ol' pinko you! =) There's an area I could halfway agree with you, although I'd spend it on food and books, instead of guns and bombs, but hey, whatever.

Further, I notice you dodged the question of whether we should pursue your interventionalist stance across the globe. Well, what about it? There are lots of tyrants out there Dios, even in places that don't have significant oil deposits.

You also ducked the most important question. Are the Iraqi people "free" now?
posted by stenseng at 2:12 PM on May 23, 2005

This has been a "Smash and Grab" administration from day 1.
posted by Balisong at 2:17 PM on May 23, 2005

Further, I notice you dodged the question of whether we should pursue your interventionalist stance across the globe. Well, what about it? There are lots of tyrants out there Dios, even in places that don't have significant oil deposits.
posted by stenseng at 2:12 PM PST on May 23

Absolutely. In fact, I am sure I have said it before. I usually make the point where someone comes up with the silly argument "Well what about X? How come we didn't dispose X? This must have been about Iraqi oil." Well, X should go, too. The thing is, one has to start somewhere. Whether Saddam is the biggest or baddest is a point for debate. But he certainly was ripe for picking, so it was a good place to start. Does that mean we have to go to X because of the dictator there? I would hope at some point, if there is a brutal tyranny, the US would address it.

You also ducked the most important question. Are the Iraqi people "free" now?

Absolutely. Their tyrant leader was disposed. The tyrant who made everyone vote for him, but took it one step more: he made everyone vote. So he got 100% of the vote with 100% of the turnout. And then when he won, he let go all the non-political prisoners from places like Abu Ghraib to add insult to injury. What a guy. He is gone. So the people aren't under that tyrannical regime. Now they are free for self-determination. They had an election; they are in the process of drafting a constitution. The Sunnis are starting to come around and get in the political fold after playing sore losers. The US is still there to help give security to the fledgling government, but the US by no means occupies or dictates things to Iraq. The US Army is there are the request of the government to train Iraqi troops, it is not there to take resources or subjugate the people. Iraq will have regular, meaningful elections: the hallmark of a free people.

So yes. They are free. By comparison or absolute terms.
posted by dios at 2:37 PM on May 23, 2005

Could things have been done better?

As Voltaire would say, don't make The Best the enemy of The Good.
posted by dios at 2:51 PM on May 23, 2005

Bah, I meant to link to the wiki on Voltaire, but I linked to the wrong window.
posted by dios at 2:52 PM on May 23, 2005

Freedom begins at home, dios, and while we're off in Iraq doing whatever it is we're doing, the Patriot Act is being strengthened, environmentalists are being called terrorists, and our tax money is funding religious programs. You can't successfully export anything that's not safe at home first.
posted by amberglow at 3:00 PM on May 23, 2005

Read the article. Distilled the point to the paragraph ending: "There's a word for this: pathetic."
I would counter the more appropriate words are: loyal opposition.

So this bonehead expects the left to what? About face and adopt a Steve Forbes stare?
Iraq could be a huge overwhelming success. Could. But even if such turns out to be the case - was it flawlessly executed? Could things have been done better? Must we abandon criticism for...well, he never really spells that out really. What then is the alternative to useful opposition? Ah yes of course: "walk away from the house the left has built."
Clearly, that will solve everything.
The very fact that we're constructively discussing it here renders the entire article's point as moot.

I would contest some of the argument over details here though. Some nuances are being missed. The Iraqi "elections" weren't a joke, roughy. Legitimacy is a very public thing. One could assert that it's worth having a loaded deck for the first deal as long as the game gets played in the end. The whole Machivelli "you only run things as long as people think you run things" thing. Many of the American founding fathers were elected to higher office for example, so you could say that deck was stacked. On the other hand you didn't have France building military bases here, forcing economic interests on us and letting us know which founding fathers it would like to see get elected, but we were lucky.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:23 PM on May 23, 2005

Argh! the prev post got bound up in the second one. Sorry. Lousy work computer.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:24 PM on May 23, 2005

"As Voltaire would say, don't make The Best the enemy of The Good."
Rhetorical question, man. I'm not advocating doing nothing lest we fail to be perfect. The point is that Thompson's point is moot.
One can leave the left, but one cannot - as this guy did - advocate an abandonment of opposition no matter what the political act may be.
One can move ahead with a plan while acknowleging that there needs to be a dynamic feedback system in place to find errors in the plan as well as the act and to diagnose future errors.
I'm not arguing the fact of Iraq or any issue. I'm stating that without opposing viewpoints there is no democracy.
The reason why all tyrants fall is because they cannot tolerate a working adequite system of feedback in the form of opposition.
Fairly simple.
One could make the exact same statement I'm making about the right during the Clinton presidency.
Thompson's argument only works one way.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:36 PM on May 23, 2005

It smacks of "Lets spend our money on something insipid like prescription drugs for seniors instead of helping others."

Huh? What on earth is that supposed to mean?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 3:57 PM on May 23, 2005

Oh yeah, Iraqi women are so much freer, what with being forced to veil and dropping out of school.
posted by dame at 3:58 PM on May 23, 2005

There's a name for people who hate George W. Bush. They're called Patriots.

A-fucking-men.

And as soon as the Democrats realize this, and stop being ashamed to call themselves patriots, in a loud and clear voice, with no equivocation, they might have a chance at winning an election.

It burns me up that a lot of people with reasonable ideas, and a social conscience, somehow feel uncomfortable proclaiming loudly "I love my country."

I think they are afraid that Joe Democrat might somehow confuse that with "I love my president."

They should remember that liberal voters are more educated, and less likely to conflate those ideas than our mouth-breathing colleagues across the aisle.
posted by bashos_frog at 4:03 PM on May 23, 2005

The idea of a unified left baffles me. A fractious, disjointed left I see all the time. look around. "I don't belong to an organized political party- i'm progressive". apologies to Will Rogers

It seems clear the group in control of this country has succeeded due to their ability to get people to toe their line.

I think we may be bringing american style democracy to Iraq. Aren't we building something like 300 new prisons there? Saddam didn't have enough. hmmm.
posted by pointilist at 4:21 PM on May 23, 2005

The result is what it is important to me.

But you want me to focus on Bush's motivations because thats where political points can be scored.

It has been pointed out already that this is ends-justify-the-means thinking. However, I have a bigger problem with it - it is dangerously bad thinking.

Decisions should not be evaluated based on results. I could drive home drunk from a bar 3 nights a week for a month, without getting into an accident, but that would not make it a good decision.

A decision should be evaluated on the information available at the time the decision is made, the probability of successful vs. unsuccessful outcomes, and the cost/benefit of each. If I toss a coin, and offer to give you $5 for heads and take $10 from you for tails, it is a bad bet whether you win or lose.

Someone like GWB, who makes bad decisions consistently (from driving drunk as a youth, to wrecking several companies in middle age, to starting unnecessary wars now) is bound to lose a lot over the long term. The scary thing is that he is gambling with the welfare of a great nation and it's people, if not the welfare of the entire world.

Iraq could turn into Disneyland overnight, but that would not mean that Dubya was right, only that he was lucky.

On the other hand, had his rationale for war been more solidly grounded, and if his plans and cost estimates had made more sense, and had he been honest and forthright in the run-up to war, I might have given him a lot more benefit of the doubt, had things gone to shit anyway.
posted by bashos_frog at 4:24 PM on May 23, 2005

Any discussion of the financial aspects makes me ill. I can't believe our own economics self-interest would dictate my committment that people should have liberation. And to be honest, it is the one argument by the opposition that I find to be the most revolting.

Then why didn't GWB pay for the war out of the money he instead gave to the rich as tax cuts. He asks the troops to sacrifice their lives, but he can't ask his campaign contributors to sacrifice a few dollars, like, to maybe pay for some body armor?

That is truly revolting.

But it is not as revolting as when he had the unmitigated gall to criticize John Kerry for espousing the idea that if we are going to spend more money on the war, that maybe the rich should tighten their belts a bit.
posted by bashos_frog at 4:30 PM on May 23, 2005

withdrawing the 300 prisons comment- can't find my source.
posted by pointilist at 4:42 PM on May 23, 2005

Dios, the long and the short of it is that you ARE a chickenhawk. No, your nebulous concept of "moral and financial support" just doesn't cut it. You think this adventure is such a hot idea, why AREN'T you over there fighting it? Well? Unless you have a club foot, lazy eye, or heaven forfend, a severe anal cyst, you ought to be over there pounding sand, putting your eight pints where your mouth is. Cause that's what's really going on over there. People are dying, losing limbs, losing eyes, suffering physical and psychological damage they will have to live with for the rest of their lives, all for your grand plan that's so good and so singlely important, you're not willing to support it through any means other than a lot of hot fucking air.

If you think this war is so important, and if you have any regard or respect for the people actually, y'know, putting their asses on the line FIGHTING it, where's your continual outrage and condemnation of Bush's underfunding of armor, supplies, and neccesary safety equipment?

Where's your outrage at this administration CUTTING veterans benefits in the middle of this goddamned GLORIOUS WAR? Where's your condemnation of tax cuts for the richest 1% in this country while the rest of us bear the financial burden of your great democracy building enterprise?

You and your neocon idealogue friends are dangerous. I have yet to see a single neocon who's actually served in combat.

You get people killed, you fuck things up, and you bear absolutely no accountability for any of it, because you're idiot children who can't conceptualize loss, death, dismemberment, and the myriad other horrors that come hand in skeletal hand with your grandiose concepts about how things "should be."

Additionally, you're either idiot dupes of the folks who really cooked this thing up, the war profiteers and oil-mongers, our you're complicit participants in outright lies, deception, and other crimes against the trust, goodwill, and better nature of this country and the world.

Ultimately, I believe that no one can decide whether dying for freedom and democracy is worthwhile, but themselves. I think it's incument upon all peoples to take their own first steps toward freedom and democracy, and I think THEN is the appropriate time for us AS A COUNTRY to address ways in which we can be of service to the cause of freedom. I further believe that this is a decision that must be made in the open, without our duplicity, dissembly, or outright lies on the part of our leaders.

Your opinion that the price of Iraq's "freedom" is worth paying is worth less tha nothing to me, because it's academic to you. You can be assured that YOU WILL NOT DIE, nor will you fight. Nor will you see a loved one or friend die, bleed, or suffer.

You're a hypocrite and a fool, and I'm done with you now.
posted by stenseng at 5:00 PM on May 23, 2005

ouch.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 5:20 PM on May 23, 2005

ouch is right.
posted by exlotuseater at 5:25 PM on May 23, 2005

Thanks for saying what needed to be said, yo.
posted by beth at 5:44 PM on May 23, 2005

In Russia, You're never done with dios. Dios is done with you.

They should remember that liberal voters are more educated, and less likely to conflate those ideas than our mouth-breathing colleagues across the aisle.

As a former (and current occasional) mouth breather, I must register offense at the slander against my identity group. I had really bad allergies when I was a kid. My nose was always teh stuffed.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:55 PM on May 23, 2005

They should remember that liberal voters are more educated, and less likely to conflate those ideas than our mouth-breathing colleagues across the aisle.

They should just follow the example of their betters? That what your saying? That attitude has been sinking good ideas and programs for years. And yeah, I may say it all the time, but I'll damned if I remain silent while you tank the ship in the name of feeling superior.
posted by jonmc at 6:15 PM on May 23, 2005

"Supporting nascent steps toward democracy and liberty means that one shouldn't be considered on the left? This is utterly incoherent."

You realize that democracy is the last thing the Bushists want to develop in Iraq. What they want is an obedient puppet state that calls itself a democracy.

Any actions that the new "democracy" takes in Iraq that runs counter to US objectives, in particular against the profitable interests of corporations, will either be ignored or squashed outright.

Getting the US out of Iraq and nationalizing the oil reserves would absolutely be in Iraq's best interest.

Fat chance.
posted by rougy at 6:48 PM on May 23, 2005

[The scene: LEFTE and SOID sit in a noisy, smoke-belching beat up car. SOID is driving it out of the used car lot as they talk] Special Note: resemblence to actual mefi members is pure coincidence.

SOID: "He seemed like a good guy, my kind of guy. Real authoritarian. I like that stuff. Doesn't matter what the majority wants to do to the minority; just enforce that shit. I'm like a social liberal look at me!! [snorts] Like those guys they put on stage at that Convention, you know those guys they must be real influential in the Bush administration, or otherwise they wouldn't put 'em on TV. Like all them ethnics in 2000"
LEFTE [holding up slip of paper attached to broken seatbelt; it reads 'IOU 1 seatbelt'; on close inspection the 'I' is crossed out]: "Look, the salesman lied about the upholstery, the turn signals, and now the seat belts. I told you these things a million times when we were looking at it."
[car hits a bump, hubcaps fly off, car keeps bouncing on bad shocks]
LEFTE: "Now the whole thing is shaking."
SOID: "Stop being so shrill!! Can't I drive two blocks without you complaining about it shaking in that shrill voice? I am sick to death of you, the car is full of your too-shrill shrillity!! Why don't you do something constructive?"
LEFTE: "As I remember you kicked me in the knee and took the wheel yourself, so what do you want me to do?"
SOID: "Oh, so you're shrill because you're powerless. I knew it. The only way you can get something done is by trying to 'reason' with me and I just don't listen to powerless people, sorry. To shrill for ol' SOID."
[car lurches up onto the curb; sparks fly and the car makes a booming sound; SOID pretends not to notice]
SOID [rolling eyes]: "Now I have to sit through you making a big deal of that little driving mistake anybody could have made. You never say anything about the curbs I don't hit which shows just how totally biased and unfair you are."
LEFTE [glaring]: "We could have gotten another car you know."
SOID: "Back to this?! What are you, against sunroofs? This car has a sunroof -- do you have some other car handy we can drive? One with a sunroof? This car was our only option."
LEFTE: "How the hell would I have another car? We just went in 50/50 on this one. And why's the sunroof suddenly so damned important?"
SOID: "I know the ugly truth that clouds your heart! This car is right now getting us across town. What's so bad about going across town? You're always 'slow down' or 'pull over and check the engine' -- (how ironic that I used to be the one trying to mess with you while you were driving, teehee!) Do you have something against forward motion or something? Why are so focused on all this bullshit about how the salesman had to lie to get us to buy the car? It drives, why should I care how he packaged it. It works, and I don't see you providing me with a better car. "
LEFTE: "You nitwit, I'm trying to tell you that all signs point to this car falling apart in the near future, and sooner or later we're going to be stranded in ass-nowhere with a dead car and empty pockets if not broken limbs and gasoline burns. Or are you saying you believed just the part where the salseman talked about the new engine and transmission?"
SOID: "You're starting to sound unreasonable, like you hate the idea of driving across town with the sunroof open. This is why I can't listen to you, you shrill loser."
LEFTE: "Christ, I remember how you lapped it up... [does a funny voice] 'oh yeah, new upholstery? working seatbelts! I love it, only moonbats from dailyKOS are anti-seatbelt' -- yet now it's all just 'whatever' as long as it gets across town and has a sunroof."
SOID: "Look, we've made it two miles, Mission Practically Accomplished! You just hate the fact that we're getting across town in my car that I picked out and I get to drive it, nyah! Your selfishness disgusts me!"
LEFTE [thinking]: "I bet the sunroof doesn't even work."
SOID: "It works. God, you're paranoid."
LEFTE: [pushes sunroof button; nothing happens]
SOID: "Hey, don't you start making Best the enemy of Good."
[car lurches left narrowly avoiding a wreck. SOID smiles triumphantly]
SOID: "You're mad because you're powerless. I bet you're going to try to reason with me. [sighs]. Haven't you been listening to what I've said? I respect authority. I believe that might makes right. I don't respect or listen to powerless people. And when this heap of junk -- er, heap of freedom -- breaks down, we both know who's going to be doing the pushing. So what do you think your next move is?"

posted by fleacircus at 10:03 PM on May 23, 2005

Stenseng, you're wasting your time.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:18 PM on May 23, 2005

Next, are YOU willing to personally fight for Iraqis to be free? If not, why not

I'm not answering that argument because I find the whole chickenhawk thing to be a red herring.

Translation: I'm a chickenhawk and a coward who won't follow his principles to their logical conclusion. My only way to dodge that issue is to literally dodge that issue and not discuss it. Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize (poorly).

You are so full of shit I can taste it from way over here, dios. That question is completely relevant. When you are asked if it's right to risk American lives for Iraq and you answer 'Yes', then you have to answer for why you won't risk your own. But you can't, because you have no good answer.

Once again, this thread shows that you will deflect any and all logic, any and all facts, that skewer your arguments. That is why you get zero respect here: not because you're a raving apologist for fascism. Everyone makes mistakes (though most people not so insanely). It's because you're a raving apologist for fascism who refuses to learn anything.

You are a waste of human thought, dios.

fleasong, that last post was a thing of beauty. Thanks.
posted by the_savage_mind at 2:44 AM on May 24, 2005

Is there any way to discuss this without the personal insults? Insult the argument, but do you need to insult me personally?

_________________________

As to the chickenhawk argument, I stand by my original point that it is a pathetic and weak argument that has no substance. It only is used by people to shut up someone else. It is easy to *win* (if thats your goal) when you attempt to take away the right to even allege an opposition based on some external and irrelevant made up principle.

If you didn't want to have this discussion, why did you pretend at the outset that you wanted to? If you were just going to take the lazy way out and argue that until I serve in the military (which you know I do not), I can't support the position that I do, then why did you even engage the discussion? It is a lazy and weak form of rhetoric on your part that seeks to avoid the substance an merits of the discussion.

To the merits of the chickenhawk "argument," at the outset, I would respond with the article by Michael Kelly which points out how weak the chickenhawk argument is and how it is used as a tool to avoid the discussion. I think Hitchens deconstructed its implications as well.

To these I would only add the following to those who rely on such a pathetic argument:
Consider the logical extension of the stupid argument and you see how utterly unhelpful it is. Next time your house is on fire, don't call the fire department. Since you are not the in fire department, you have no right to call them in to risk their lives to save your house. Next time you are in danger, don't call the police. You have no right to advocate law enforcement because you are not out there in danger. Next time there is an ebola virus outbreak, don't ask doctors and scientists to try to stop it, because you aren't out there risking yourself.

It is complete and utter nonsense. The police, fire and medical fields all have chosen to put their lives in danger to perform a task. As have military people. They are well aware of the dangers, and they choose them because they want to be the person who does what their country asks. That I am not one of them, doesn't deprive me of the right to comment on what I think would be the best use of them. People have the right to an opinion regardless of whether they are dodging bullets. The stupid argument you are alleging suggests that only someone on the front lines could be the Commander in Chief. We have a civilian led military. Always have.

Does it matter that I have a cousin who flies stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri? He flies from Missouri staight to Iraq, performs his task, and then flies back to Missouri. It takes a couple of days straight of flying. Because my cousin is in danger, do I get some moral authority? When I talk to him, he tells me that he does the task so that I (and you) don't have to. He feels it is his duty to do what we ask him to do. Oh, but might one be so pathetic as to argue that he is safe in the clouds, so he doesn't count because he is not any more danger than I am. That only the guys who are on the front line count because they are the ones dying and in danger. So we are supposed to make our entire foreign policy decisions based on a straw poll of the people on the front lines? What if we did, and 80% of them supported our action in Iraq. Would that mean that you would have stfu?

The chickenhawk "argument" is not really an argument at all. It is merely an attempt to avoid the substance of a dispute by negating the authority to make an argument. It is sloppy and weak, which is why I dismissed it in my earlier response. Now you can feel free to make your passionate speeches and insult me all you want, but I think that it is a rhetorically pathetic approach that shows you really don't want to discuss the merits of the argument and that you only want to shut me up. And then, to let the other shoe drop, you accuse me of avoiding the argument. If you don't want to have the discussion we were having, then don't participate. But don't start to have a discussion and then just drop your pants and shit all over it. It might get you some ass-patting from the guys who share the hive-mind, but it really doesn't add anything to the discussion of substance.
posted by dios at 8:21 AM on May 24, 2005

What was the discussion again?
posted by Balisong at 8:28 AM on May 24, 2005

nofundy loves stenseng and fleacircus.
jonmc is still the apologist of the beaten wife type.
dios still thinks he is god.
-observations of a hive mind-
posted by nofundy at 9:02 AM on May 24, 2005

jonmc is still the apologist of the beaten wife type.

no offense, nofundy, but you're incomprehension of what I'm about is almost comical.
posted by jonmc at 9:22 AM on May 24, 2005

You can call the chickenhawk argument (and that's the way you characterize it, not me) pathetic if you like, but I followed the link to Michael Kelly's article, and I find his argument to be fully unconvincing.

I am sick to death of the people who promote war telling me that I'm not patriotic because I don't want to send other people to die for me. People who say that anti-war activists are somehow unpatriotic because they don't support the war should expect to be called hypocrites when they only support the war through rhetoric.

Saying that you support the troops and/or warblogging does nothing to support either the war or liberty. The people who brought you the Iraq war also refuse to fund it properly. They aren't even willing to pay extra taxes to promote democracy. They aren't even willing to pay the same taxes that people paid during peace time to support liberty. What they are willing to do is wave flags and listen to patriotic songs and bluster. If you're going to send other people to die, you could at least arm them properly and send enough soldiers so that as few of them die as possible.
posted by anapestic at 9:51 AM on May 24, 2005

Insult the argument, but do you need to insult me personally?

Yes.

How do you insult an argument?
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:23 AM on May 24, 2005

How do you insult an argument?

We could have saved so much time and trouble in the thread-that-shall-not-be-named if people had been more clear about the difference.

Insulting an argument: "The premise that you have to support the war to be patriotic is full of shit"

Insulting a person: "You are so full of shit I can taste it from way over here, dios"

One is a valid form of argument, the other is the refuge of cowards, people with untenable positions, and the closed-minded.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 10:56 AM on May 24, 2005

The people who brought you the Iraq war also refuse to fund it properly. They aren't even willing to pay extra taxes to promote democracy. They aren't even willing to pay the same taxes that people paid during peace time to support liberty.

Any statement that begins with an assertion about what "the people" do is usually dangerous. In this case you need to back off on the broad brush and/or strawman. Dios supports the war, and I remember one of his comments saying that dios is willing to support funding it. That pretty much destroys your argument since we have an example of somebody who "brought [us] the war" who is willing to "pay extxra taxes to promote democracy". You're selectively conflating what the administration has done and what "the people" think. It's pretty transparent how you see "the people".
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:00 AM on May 24, 2005

One is a valid form of argument, the other is the refuge of cowards, people with untenable positions, and the closed-minded.

I just don't get how you insult arguments or other abstract ideas. Seems like yelling at an inanimate object, like a brick wall. Which, ironically, is much like having a conversation about the war with someone like Dios. I agree that Dios is full of shit; I just don't think he has the presence to understand that he is full of shit. Dios actually believes his own nonsense. Relatively speaking, in Dios-world, Bush has and can do no wrong, or people are anti-Semites for disagreeing with Israeli policies, or a well-known intellectual is a Holocaust denier for holding left-wing positions. You just can't convince him otherwise, even in the presence of contradictory evidence, to consider changing or modulating the tone of his point of view. It raises a good question why people try. I think Dios' question "Insult the argument, but do you need to insult me personally?" is a very good one, and more pertinent than any other point he's brought up so far.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:18 AM on May 24, 2005

Relatively speaking, in Dios-world, Bush has and can do no wrong, or people are anti-Semites for disagreeing with Israeli policies, or a well-known intellectual is a Holocaust denier for holding left-wing positions.

I don't agree with dios on a lot of stuff, but that's a huge mis-characterization of his positions. You're twisting his words to make him seem ridiculous. Agree with him or not, he tries to make points in a civil manner without personally insulting anybody. In return he gets a barrage of personal attacks.

Insulting him personally (just from this thread: "you are so full of shit I can taste it from way over here, dios", "you're a raving apologist for fascism who refuses to learn anything", "you are a waste of human thought") makes the person doing the insulting look closed-minded to everyone other than a small group of MeFites who can't see the difference between a civil discussion and a "bush is teh suck" pile-on. Unfortunately the social reinforcement here is toward the pile-on.

It's disgusting and it allows a few users to create an image of MeFi as a bunch of thugs who can't argue without turning to personal attacks.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:29 AM on May 24, 2005

Any statement that begins with an assertion about what "the people" do is usually dangerous. In this case you need to back off on the broad brush and/or strawman.

Oh, bull. I'm not talking about dios. The people who brought us this war are the administration, who are also the people who brought us tax cuts at nearly the same time. Unless you think that dios was the one who ordered the troop deployments. I do not see a lot of willingness on the part of anyone who's actually responsible for sending people to war to do anything except run up massive deficits.

How is that a strawman, anyway? Any time anyone around here wants to dismiss an argument but doesn't have a good way to refute it, they call it a strawman.
posted by anapestic at 11:32 AM on May 24, 2005

The people who brought us this war are the administration, who are also the people who brought us tax cuts at nearly the same time.

Okay, but your argument was people weren't willing to PAY taxes to support the war. Not that the administration was unwilling to LEVY them. There's a huge difference. When you say "they aren't even willing to pay extra taxes to promote democracy" that pretty strongly implies that the people who are paying (ie, the citizens) are the problem.

I guess I mis-read what your comment was intended to say. The strawman would be that all war supporters are unwilling to pay for the war, when that is clearly false. However, if you're just saying that the President won't raise taxes then you have a valid (if poorly phrased) point.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:35 AM on May 24, 2005

Anapestic is making the same point I had on my mind when I asked Dios

"where's your continual outrage and condemnation of Bush's underfunding of armor, supplies, and neccesary safety equipment?

Where's your outrage at this administration CUTTING veterans benefits in the middle of this goddamned GLORIOUS WAR? Where's your condemnation of tax cuts for the richest 1% in this country while the rest of us bear the financial burden of your great democracy building enterprise?"

We still haven't heard an answer.
posted by stenseng at 11:57 AM on May 24, 2005

But I have answered that, if not here, then in other threads. So, I will restate my view of that so that you don't suggest I am dodging any question (as if I am the kind of person who hides his opinions...)

where's your continual outrage and condemnation of Bush's underfunding of armor, supplies, and neccesary safety equipment?

I think Bush has been trying to get the funding for the troops. I do recall a certain presidential candidate who was voting against funding for the troops... but that wasn't Bush.
Bush has been requesting appropriations sufficient for the demands of the military.

Where's your outrage at this administration CUTTING veterans benefits in the middle of this goddamned GLORIOUS WAR?

I think Troops should keep the hazard pay they have if not get more. To the extent the administration has cut or talked about cutting benefits, I would disagree with it and think that it is to the fault of the administration. But disputes regarding the implementation of the war (which I think there are some valid disputes) does not, in any way, inform against the wisdom of the overall enterprise.

Where's your condemnation of tax cuts for the richest 1% in this country while the rest of us bear the financial burden of your great democracy building enterprise

This is class warfare ~~lies~~ ~~stupidity~~ nonsense masequerading as foreign policy rhetoric. Everyone got tax cuts, and that is a credit for Bush. Taxes should have been cut across the board.

Where he has gone wrong is running up deficits by not cutting non-defense spending.
posted by dios at 12:23 PM on May 24, 2005

Ah, so dios is willing to pay more for war, as long as he pays less overall. Way to sacrifice.
posted by anapestic at 12:27 PM on May 24, 2005

I don't agree with dios on a lot of stuff, but that's a huge mis-characterization of his positions. You're twisting his words to make him seem ridiculous. Agree with him or not, he tries to make points in a civil manner without personally insulting anybody. In return he gets a barrage of personal attacks.

That's bullshit and I'm not doing anything of the sort. If I cared any more, I could easily quote him verbatim on his positions as I stated them above. I have in the past, if you'd care to do a little research. He's done nothing to back up those and other positions with any evidence or research. If anything, people have gone out of their way to provide documented proof that makes a number of Dios' assertions wrong, yet he keeps going on like a broken record. If you think Dios is being civil, you should look at his posting history. There's nothing thuggish about calling someone on his or her statements. Let's call a spade a spade: If he can't do it, then he's full of shit. Period. He should not need to wonder why people are insulting him personally when he continues not to address legitimate concerns about the veracity of his comments.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:35 PM on May 24, 2005

There's nothing thuggish about calling someone on his or her statements.

Calling someone "a raving apologist for fascism who refuses to learn anything" and "a waste of human thought" isn't thuggish in your book?

If you want to say that his positions are consistently without support then that's fine. But there's no need to make it personal.

Again, there's a rather important difference between attacking a person and attacking their arguments and positions.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 12:39 PM on May 24, 2005

One is a valid form of argument, the other is the refuge of cowards, people with untenable positions, and the closed-minded.

Hey, I agree with you, ddl. Your cowardice and close-mindedness are for you to deal with, though;)

Seriously, I could give a fuck. The insults come at this point because I've decided dios doesn't deserve respectful answers. Any effort put into them is a waste. I stand by my assertions, and your thoughts n the subject don't make me feel guilty in the slightest.

dios helps perpetuate the rape and torture of America's prisoners, the counter-productive deaths of people in nations like Iraq, the support of more bloodshed in other nations like Uzbekistan, the metaphorical rape and destruction of the rule of law in the US, the destruction of the economy in the US, and subsequent pain and misery to honest Americans.

Faced with the truth of that, he chooses to continue his support. That makes him culpable. Which means my 'attacks' are the very minimum that he deserves.

I repeat, he is an apologist for fascism, a waste of himan thought and colossally full of shit. You can whine all you want, but I'm through dancing around that issue. He deserves far worse, IMO. That's as far as I'm prepared to go, however, and I have zero qualms doing it at this point.

Respectful and carefully presented responses are wasted completely on him. Not because he's conservative (I have enough of those among my peers with whom I can hold a civil debate), but because he's dishonest. He has been given far too many objective facts (amidst countless mere opinions) to counter various arguments over countless threads, and he never acknowledges them.

This is the last time I bother to explain myself on the subject or give any further reasoned response on the subject. From here on out, I stick to my guns whether you complain or not. But, I will say this... I will try simply not to respond to his posts at all. Doubtful I'll be successful at all times, but I'll try. I won't pretend to have respect for his opinion, though.
posted by the_savage_mind at 1:06 PM on May 24, 2005

P.S., I find it rich that you defend his honor. I suggest you look back at his history of posting to find some nice ad hominems of his own. Usually thinly-veiled in generalizations about those who disagree with him strongly... he doesn't even have the courage to be straight up about it. But you'll have to hunt, as I won't be wasting any more of my time on the subject.
posted by the_savage_mind at 1:09 PM on May 24, 2005

the_savage_mind - I appreciate your civil response. I disagree with you about the issue, but I think the best we can do is agree to disagree.

I suggest you look back at his history of posting to find some nice ad hominems of his own.

I'm sure he does. And given the opportunity I'd call him out on them as well. I'm by no means claiming that dios is a little angel. I'm just saying that in this thread he was quite civil (no matter how misguided you think his politics are) and he was piled-onto. The kettle doesn't get any less black just because it's the pot calling it out.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 1:57 PM on May 24, 2005

That is utter nonsense. You couldn't engage me with any more bad faith if you tried.

I support my opinions and explain them. It is utter nonsense that you reject the basis of them, then say that I don't provide a basis for them.

I am speaking to both Alex and savage mind. Both of you are making it painfully clear that unless I CHANGE my position based on YOUR arguments, then somehow I am acting in bad faith. If I don't accept YOUR arguments, then somehow I am not worthy of even basic respect. Utter bullshit.

Nothing more than bullying people and trying to force them into lockstep mindset, which is IRONICALLY the very purpose of the article in this FPP.

I have opinions and make explanations of them. I am not apologist of Bush; I am critical of him, too (as in this thread on several occasions). But that isn't enough. Because I don't accept YOUR world view in totality, then I am apologist of fascism, pro-rape, lying, etc. That is IDEOLOGICAL FASCISM.

Amazing. This "with us or against us" ideological fascism, of which you are providing an example, is the exact ARGUMENT of the article this FPP is about.
posted by dios at 2:04 PM on May 24, 2005

And yet, there are conservatives who post here and who are treated with respect. The fact that you aren't (and I agree with much of the substance of your last post, though it conveniently ignores your history of belligerence) is at least as much a reflection of your behavior as it is of the behavior of others who are fed up with you.

So if the left is so awful and MeFi is the epitome of that left-leaning awfulness, why do you stick around? I can only think that you do it because you enjoy getting the reaction that you get and that you enjoy being combative more than you enjoy reasoned debate.

And please note that I am not calling for you to be banned. I merely point out that it is illogical to want to stay on a site that you claim to believe lacks logic and treats you unfairly.
posted by anapestic at 2:12 PM on May 24, 2005

To change the subject a little, apparently British defense chiefs believe that Afghanistan is a hair away from full out civil war. Accoring to US defense chiefs, if Britain diverts troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to try to help the situation, it will destabilize Iraq. I guess they mean destabilize Iraq further. Meanwhile even Condi admits that our ally in the War on Terror, Hamid Karzai, is part of the reason why Afghanistan is back on top when it comes to world drug production.

In other news, our that Left Wing media darling, The Washington Post, continues to sweep the Bush admin's lies that backed the war under the rug. Or at least cram them under the sofa cushions.
posted by the_savage_mind at 2:14 PM on May 24, 2005

Because, anapestic, it isn't the entire site that is problematic. It is a handful of posters here (and one could easily pick them out) that behave in abusive ways towards people who oppose their accepted view of things. At some point that might change. But it won't if we just let it continue.
posted by dios at 2:27 PM on May 24, 2005

were it not for the fact that you and people like you are getting good people killed half a world away, while you safely spout your chickenhawk horseshit, allowing the precious freedoms you're so intent on spreading abroad to wither and die on the vine of corporatist neocon fascism here at home.

Umm, stenseng, buddy, I think you just proved the point about being bullies and thugs. You may believe that the policies dios is supporting are wrong. That's fine and great. You might even think they're incredibly harmful. But that doesn't mean that there is something wrong with dios personally, nor that there aren't rational arguments behind his positions (even if you disagree with them). By making this personal you look like the bigger fool and hurt your own cause.

stenseng, your actions in this thread are just as bad as the people you despise. You post as if you see the world in black-and-white and anybody who is not with you is against you. Those are exactly the traits you despise in others. You have become your enemy.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 2:57 PM on May 24, 2005

The "people I despise" are rich people who are lying to get Americans and Iraqis killed because it's profitable, and the hapless dupes like Dios who either see the truth and don't care, or are too damned blind to recognize the damage they are doing.

I'm not getting anyone killed through ignorance or intentional malice. Your argument holds no water. Thank you, come again.
posted by stenseng at 3:09 PM on May 24, 2005

stenseng, you're not helping your cause at all. Let it rest.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:20 PM on May 24, 2005

Does anyone else see posters here in their full Flame Warrior regailia?
posted by Balisong at 4:02 PM on May 24, 2005

I am speaking to both Alex and savage mind. Both of you are making it painfully clear that unless I CHANGE my position based on YOUR arguments, then somehow I am acting in bad faith. If I don't accept YOUR arguments, then somehow I am not worthy of even basic respect. Utter bullshit.

*sigh*

Dios, I don't want to change your position on anything. That's up to you.

I would, however, like to just once see you to back up the bullshit that comes out your mouth with actual facts.

I'd like to apologize for calling you a troll. You don't have the brains for trolling. Mea culpa.
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:05 PM on May 24, 2005

balisong, that site is an utter riot. And yes, it is so much fun to add those images and titles to the players engaged here, myself included. I will have to have that link handy from now on.
posted by the_savage_mind at 5:12 PM on May 24, 2005

I'd like to apologize for calling you a troll. You don't have the brains for trolling. Mea culpa.

I think dios should start a MeTa asking for an apology. You know, just to see how it goes.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 5:14 PM on May 24, 2005

Meanwhile even Condi admits that our ally in the War on Terror, Hamid Karzai, is part of the reason why Afghanistan is back on top when it comes to world drug production.

We're throwing our puppet overboard quick, no? Is there some Chalabi relative that wants the job? or a Taliban? or maybe it's one of the Warlords/poppy kings? (Rush needs his fix, after all)
posted by amberglow at 5:16 PM on May 24, 2005

I think dios should start a MeTa asking for an apology. You know, just to see how it goes.

Or he could let go of his belligerence and start over. Just to see how it goes. You know?
posted by AlexReynolds at 5:30 PM on May 24, 2005

Does anyone else see posters here in their full Flame Warrior regailia?

I do now.
posted by AlexReynolds at 5:34 PM on May 24, 2005

Ahh, welcome to the party, amberglow.

A Chalabi is an inspired choice, but I don't know that any others were disciples of Leo Strauss. That could be a problem when trying to come up with contrived, pompous philosphical justifications for shitting all over democracy.

On the other hand, they do need someone who can make sure the oil and gas pipelines keep flowing to the right American companies, and Chalabis are good at that. If not, maybe Uzbekistan's Karimov will be soon free to take the position.

AlexReynolds, don't be so hasty. Troglodyte is seductive, but does it really win out over Ferrous Cranus?
posted by the_savage_mind at 5:44 PM on May 24, 2005

but does it really win out over Ferrous Cranus?

Working link
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 6:19 PM on May 24, 2005

"...nor that there aren't rational arguments behind his positions (even if you disagree with them).

"Rational" and "factual" are two entirely different things.
posted by rougy at 6:46 PM on May 24, 2005

Oooh, we're breaking out the Flame warriors?

I claim this one.
posted by jonmc at 6:50 PM on May 24, 2005

Hey dios, ever read Martin Amis' Koba the Dread? Where he keeps addressing his (ex-?) buddy Hitchens? I don't claim Trotskyites either, though they're probably technically leftists -- until they bolt to the far right and become neocons like Kristol, Podhoretz, dozens of their disciples, and now Hitchens. It's not that Hitchens took an unpopular position, like I do among anarchists when I advocate the Platform or say that identity politics is silly, it's that he flipped over to the other side completely -- analogous to me declaring that the Nazis weren't such bad blokes after all. We take it as a betrayal and/or desertion because it is one.

Hitchens is wrong to blame his "conversion" on the "liberals'" reactions to "9/11" too: one sine qua non of what I call a true leftist is not supporting US-NATO bombing anybody, as Hitchens backed did Clinton's tail-wagging two months long devastation of Yugoslavia. By that standard Hitchen was no leftist in 1999. Note that it's one thing to say "this one's so screwy I'm not taking sides" (or "a pox on both their houses"); instead Hitchens said something very much like "I support the US and NATO -- and anyone who disagrees with me is EVIL!", and he's backed every US attack on anybody since then. (For more on Hitchens google what Chomsky said in their "debate".)

But anyway.
posted by davy at 8:43 PM on May 24, 2005

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