That's a good one, Lash. And so true. Speaking generally here, as there are a (very few) exception,s the Left can and does say pretty much anything about anybody no matter whoses reputation gets dragged through the mud, and they do it behind the right of free speech. But then they condemn anybody on the Right who says anything the Left doesn't like, most particularly if what the Right says is that the Left is wrong.
JustWonders wrote:nimh - did you happen to read Hirsi Ali's article in the WSJ yesterday? I know you don't like her, but I'm beginning to wonder if history might not judge her as one of the most courageous women of our times.
Actually, I do kinda like her. I think much of what she's doing - or rather, the way she's doing it - is totally counterproductive; but I like the feeling and idealism that's behind it. In both senses she's almost a classic leftist
Wholly different story from that Geert Wilders guy, who seems to represent nothing but resentment.
And she's definitely courageous.
I was just made aware of the below blog entry, and while I've no idea if this guy was really on the fence and pushed over by Ms. Sheehan, I'd like to believe the nonsense of the anti-war crowd could cause this kind of reaction in many more Democrats ....
Quote:Cindy sealed the deal.
I actually felt myself become a republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering.
Then it happend. The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn't take it anymore.
Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we've all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger.
Guess what folks
.they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts. Anytime your orientation to a new job involves an automatic weapon, you should be smart enough to figure out there's danger involved. I actually read some people's comments about many of the soldiers over there being naive
.they weren't expecting to go to war, so, they should be allowed to go home. Wow.
Soldiers know, when they enlist, that it is entirely possible they will be shipped out and never come home. It's part of the job. The fact that people still walk in to recruiters' offices and sign that piece of paper make them heroes. To imply that they are simple kids who didn't know what they were getting into, or even worse, that they died for no reason, or an immoral reason, does a horrible thing. It strips their sacrifice of the honor that it deserves. Even though those folks sitting out there in the Texas fields claim to honor and support the soldiers, they obviously have been blinded by their own selfishness as to the real way to support them.
Because, long story short, we can't end this war now. That would send the message that those bastardly little terrorists have won. It doesn't matter if the adminstration told us the desert sand was made of gold, and we are going over there to collect it in little buckets to bring home, the concrete fact that we are at war doesn't change. We are there, and we have a job to finish. We've toppled a regime that was dangerous not only to its own people, but also to the rest of the world. Now, we are there fighting the same terrorists we are fighting in Afghanistan. We've given liberty to millions of people, and we're trying to help create a government, in an area that is very volatile, that will be a bastion of freedom and hope for an entire race of people. I hate the fact that our boys are getting killed over there, and I wish it didn't have to happen.
But, it is, there's nothing we can do about it, except for doing everything we can to offer support and hope to the folks fighting over there. Arguing and whining about the reasons we're there, and the need to come home not only kills morale, but it is a complete waste of time.
I just re-read the above post, and I apologize for the rambling
.just needed to vent a little. Here's a breakdown of the way I see things:
-right or wrong, we're at war. no amount of yelling will fix that now.
-we have to finish the job. HAVE TO. it may take another 1800 soldiers, but it has to be done
-whether or not we're there for the right reason, we've done something great for that country
I never was a big fan of Bush. But, one thing I do believe
.he honestly wants to make this country, and this world a better place. Think about it
the war almost cost him the election. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, he'd have won in a landslide.
I think it's just my personality that lead me to this decision. I think the left is too concerned with everyone's immediate rights and needs, and refuses to sacrifice a bit of comfort and happiness in the present, for something that will make life better for everyone in the future. You can take the environmental stance on that, and I'd have no argument
but I think there enough conservatives concerned with that to make it a moot point.
Mostly, I'm just really pissed off. We're in a crappy situation, and it's time for all of America to stand together, put on the big boy pants, and get through the next few years.[/b]
If the guy who wrote this is supposed to be a Democrat, how come he doesn't sound like one?
Sure, I think it is possible that any person, Republican or Democrat, can take a contrary position to most of the rest of his party on any issue. That is not hard to believe.
But when that happens, they generally give reasons why they feel that their decision is consistent with the principles of their party. That is, they take pains to reaffirm their loyalty to the party and it's principles, and tell us why they think their party is making a mistake on this one issue.
This guy does none of that. All he does is recite the same reasons for being there that Bush and the Republicans have been doing all along. There is not a word in the entire essay which gives us a uniquely Democratic perspective as to why we must support this war. Any person differing from his party's poosition would go to great lengths to do just that.
The guy who wrote this has never been a Democrat-or at least has not been one for decades.
I don't care if he was or wasn't. I didn't take the time to look through any of his prior blog entries .... so I don't know his history. I certainly don't think I could know one way or the other based on this one entry.
But apparently you do ...
Blogger wrote:I never was a big fan of Bush. But, one thing I do believe
.he honestly wants to make this country, and this world a better place. Think about it
the war almost cost him the election. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, he'd have won in a landslide.
I'm supposed to believe a
Democrat wrote that sentence? Please.
Exactly what was Bush supposed to win on without the "we must support our troops" theme? The economy? Everything was better under Clinton than it is under Bush. Everything.
Bush took a surplus and trasnformed it into a deficit. The unemployment numbers look good only in comparison to Bush's early years-not compared to Clinton's. And the unemployment figures hide the fact that Bush drove people completely out of the labor market-despite a rise in population of 2.9%, there are 400,000
fewer 25-to-54 year olds working now than when Bush took over.
News flash-since the population keeps increasing, so should the number of people working. Otherwise you end up losing.
Then there's the whole Social Security overhaul. What Democrat thinks Bush would have won on
that issue?
Without a war going on, I am supposed to believe a Democrat actually believed Bush was headed for a lanslide victory? Unlikely, to say the least.
I have seen this phenomenon before on some local talk radio shows I used to listen to. Someone will call up, say he's a Democrat, then give the same reasons, in the same language, that Republicans were giving to support a certain conservative point of view. You can tell these guys never thought a Democratic thought in their life. But there they are on the radio, telling us they are Democrats who agree with Republicans on one issue or another..
Ticomaya wrote: But apparently you do ...
We can make educated guesses as to the sincerity of someone's claiming to be a party member breaking ranks on a single issue.
Democrats think differently from Republicans. Their priorities are different. So when someone breaks with their party on a single issue, he usually goes to some length to tell us why he feels he is not abandoning his party's principles on this one issue, but rather affirming them.
This guy did none of that. He sounded like a Republican throughout. Very likely, because he is.
Quote:I'm supposed to believe a Democrat wrote that sentence? Please.
You can believe whatever you want to believe. I believe there are a few right-thinking Democrats out there who are not total lost causes.
Does Zell Miller sound like a Democrat?
As a matter of fact, Zell Miller goes to some lengths to explain why he feels that his positions are consistent with the principles of the Democratic party as he understood them.
I don't much agree with Zell's assessments, but you cannot listen to him and reach any other conclusion that this man was a Democrat for a long, long time.
I see nothing in this blogger's post which tells me he was ever a Democrat in the recent past. He makes no attempt to show that his position is consistent with any Democratic party principles. Zell does, whether I agree with him or not.
Well, read more posts of his if you want to pry into his background. You don't know what his views are of any other topic, other than the present war, and his views concerning it sound very similar to Zell's, whom you agree is a Democrat. That being the case, how can you realistically determine what his political affiliation is based on this one post?
I'm not sure I would know how to check his previous posts. His conclusions in this post might be similar to Zell's-most Republicans' are. But as I stated before, in his public statements, in his interviews, Zell tries to square his conclusions with the principles of the Democratic party as he knew it. He does that very often, even is his discussion includes harsh assessments of the present day Democratic party.
On this one long post, I see no attempt to do that at all. If Zell Miller wrote that post, hic conclusions would be the same, but he would try to square his conclusions with the Democratic party, or at least the Democratic party as he knew it when he joined up. Most people breaking ranks with their party on an issue do that. I've seen Republicans do that when they choose to join the Democrats on a certain issue. This poster doesn't do that at all.
Could be because the focus of his post was not an effort to "square his conclusions with the principles of the Democratic party." After all, he's saying he's becoming a Republican. He's abandoning the Democrats, why would he try and square with them?
Ticomaya wrote:Could be because the focus of his post was not an effort to "square his conclusions with the principles of the Democratic party." After all, he's saying he's becoming a Republican. He's abandoning the Democrats, why would he try and square with them?
He would try to square with the principles which led him to become a Democrat in the first place.
He may change positions on an issue. He may even change parties. But most adults try to keep continuity with their principles.
I don't see any attempts to establish continuity here. And most people who go over to "the other side", even for a single issue, want to tell you how they came from there over to here. Not this guy. Which makes his post highly suspect, if not blatantly false.
I actually felt myself become a republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering.
Then it happend. The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn't take it anymore.
Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we've all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger.
Guess what folks
.they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts. Anytime your orientation to a new job involves an automatic weapon, you should be smart enough to figure out there's danger involved. I actually read some people's comments about many of the soldiers over there being naive
.they weren't expecting to go to war, so, they should be allowed to go home. Wow.
Soldiers know, when they enlist, that it is entirely possible they will be shipped out and never come home. It's part of the job. The fact that people still walk in to recruiters' offices and sign that piece of paper make them heroes. To imply that they are simple kids who didn't know what they were getting into, or even worse, that they died for no reason, or an immoral reason, does a horrible thing. It strips their sacrifice of the honor that it deserves. Even though those folks sitting out there in the Texas fields claim to honor and support the soldiers, they obviously have been blinded by their own selfishness as to the real way to support them.
Because, long story short, we can't end this war now. That would send the message that those bastardly little terrorists have won. It doesn't matter if the adminstration told us the desert sand was made of gold, and we are going over there to collect it in little buckets to bring home, the concrete fact that we are at war doesn't change. We are there, and we have a job to finish. We've toppled a regime that was dangerous not only to its own people, but also to the rest of the world. Now, we are there fighting the same terrorists we are fighting in Afghanistan. We've given liberty to millions of people, and we're trying to help create a government, in an area that is very volatile, that will be a bastion of freedom and hope for an entire race of people. I hate the fact that our boys are getting killed over there, and I wish it didn't have to happen.
But, it is, there's nothing we can do about it, except for doing everything we can to offer support and hope to the folks fighting over there. Arguing and whining about the reasons we're there, and the need to come home not only kills morale, but it is a complete waste of time.
I just re-read the above post, and I apologize for the rambling
.just needed to vent a little. Here's a breakdown of the way I see things:
-right or wrong, we're at war. no amount of yelling will fix that now.
-we have to finish the job. HAVE TO. it may take another 1800 soldiers, but it has to be done
-whether or not we're there for the right reason, we've done something great for that country
I never was a big fan of Bush. But, one thing I do believe
.he honestly wants to make this country, and this world a better place. Think about it
the war almost cost him the election. If we hadn't invaded Iraq, he'd have won in a landslide.
I think it's just my personality that lead me to this decision. I think the left is too concerned with everyone's immediate rights and needs, and refuses to sacrifice a bit of comfort and happiness in the present, for something that will make life better for everyone in the future. You can take the environmental stance on that, and I'd have no argument
but I think there enough conservatives concerned with that to make it a moot point.
Mostly, I'm just really pissed off. We're in a crappy situation, and it's time for all of America to stand together, put on the big boy pants, and get through the next few years.
______________________
I think it's pretty clear why he switched.
Hardly.
I see no statement of the principles which led him to join the Democrats in the first place, which principles he still holds, but are not expressed in the modern Democratic party, (which is Zell Miller's theme).
I see criticism of the Democratic Party, but criticism from OUTSIDE, not from inside. This blogger claims to be the insider-how did he work himself over the other side? Zell Miller tells us, as you would expect. This guy doesn't.
As I said, I have seen this gambit on talk radio before. And blogs are pretty much the cyber extension of talk radio. Some guy calls up, says he is a Democrat, then parrots the Republican position almost word for word.
It doesn't work like that, even for frequently vitiolic critics of the present day Democratic Party like Zell Miller. You can't work yourself over to the other side without wanting to tell the world why. This blogger doesn't do that, doesn't even try.
I would be extremely surprised if this guy is anything but a phony. Not for the position he takes-but for how he says he got there.
Not everyone gives political affiliation a great deal of thought. Many of them just allow themselves to get caught in a current. Like Cher. (LOL)
They can't answer ONE question about issues--just parrot empty rhetoric. So, their roots aren't deep. Think swing voter.
Lash wrote:Guess what folks
.they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts. Anytime your orientation to a new job involves an automatic weapon, you should be smart enough to figure out there's danger involved.
Exactly that's my opinion - and has it been since exactly 26, when I joined the navy (though as a conscript, but I didn't choose the alternatives): getting such a job/profession gives you a greater chance of being killed than in any other.
It's more than sad that these deaths happen, but people choose it.
Lash wrote:Not everyone gives political affiliation a great deal of thought. Many of them just allow themselves to get caught in a current.
They can't answer ONE question about issues--just parrot empty rhetoric. So, their roots aren't deep. Think swing voter.
So let me get this straight.. This presumably nonpolitical fellow, who simply chose his party affiliation on a whim, finds his way onto Blogworld, (the home of political junkies), in order to write a 792 word essay on why he no longer considers himself a Democrat. But politics mean nothing to him, he just chose a ppltical party which was convenient at the time.
Hoo boy.
