Why I left the Democratic Party

Is a 'democratic socialist' what on the 'continent' we call a social-democrat?

if they want to be Socialists they shouldn't try mucking around with it by adding qualifiers. It didn't work with National and I can't see Democratic faring any better.

If Nimh is addressing me he needn't bother. I put him on ignore after he cut and pasted one of Oralloy's posts and insisted I answer it. I won't be coerced into anything and Oralloy is on ignore for a very good reason.

For the record, I'm not really sure what Izzy is referring to with the Oralloy thing. I find it hard to imagine I tried to "coerce" anyone into responding -- not really my style -- but who knows.

If they want to call themselves Social Democrats they can go ahead with my blessing, but if they want to be Socialists they shouldn't try mucking around with it by adding qualifiers.

Yes Bush lied, but far too many people were eager to be fooled and much too happy to jump on the war band wagon.

Finn wrote:

The presence of "money" the NRA and the stoking of fear and resentment though informs your intuition sufficiently to warrant an accusation that people who hold a conservative viewpoint on the 2nd Amendment, have blood on their hands. However, these factors are only "superficial because the true cause of these horrendous acts is our pathological culture

Well, if gun violence is not a cultural phenomenon, what other explanation do you have for the huge discrepancy between our rates of school shootings and those in other countries? If it's the huge number of firearms then it would stand to reason that laws affecting the supply of weapons and their ease of purchase might not be as useless and ineffective as the gunbunnies contend.

Of course, I didn't comment on whether or not culture was involved. As a matter of fact I agree with you, but, clearly, I was taking you to task on how you abandoned your prior arguments. If you agree you have, why not admit it, and stop trying to defend your latest iteration?

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Democrats spend as much money or more as their opponents on elections.

You're always quick to bring this up, as if campaign spending is the only money in the picture. It isn't.

I'm always quick to bring it up because it is a very relevant fact. What isn't factual is the conspiracy theories you and blatham always trot out about the Koch Bros. and their "ilk"

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As far as stoking fear and resentment, what do you call the claims of Democrats that Republicans are trying to kill people with their policies, are waging war on women, the poor and every other “minority” interest group in America, literally want to control women’s reproductive systems, consider blacks and Hispanics inferior to whites, and, oh yeah, care more about their guns than their children? [/quote

I thought we were discussing gun violence and how right-wing rhetoric might have an effect on it. Why are you bringing up standard Democratic campaign positions which have nothing to do with the discussion and manifestly [i]don't[/i] stoke the sort of fear or resentment which leads to school shootings?

You can put an end to my insistence on bringing such things up very easily. Simply admit the two parties are not significantly different. Instead, you cast aspersions on the GOP as if they are unique. Stop playing coy.

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Do you frequently make truly damning accusations about people, despite the fact that you cannot draw a clear line from them to the tragedy for which you blame them; which are based upon an intuitive conclusion which you admit centers on three factors that are “superficial” (and only one of which, whether or not you admit it, can be considered uniquely “owned” by them) and which, when pressed, you discard and offer up an entirely different causation?

I didn't realize you were this thin-skinned. I simply suggested that the long held right wing positions like nationalism, hostility toward non-white immigration, and hyper-individualism tend to complicate any discussion of solutions to gun violence. Many conservatives don't hold these beliefs but the ones that do tend to predominate in this debate.


What you "simply" suggested was that anyone who opposed the Dem's proposal for additional gun control measures was culpable in the deaths of the FL student. To be precise, you didn't "suggest" it, you asserted it. I don't know about you but I tend to get pissed off when someone contends that I have blood on my hands for murders I had absolutely no involvement in. Ascribing it to "thin skin" makes you look like a fool.

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Do you image that conservatives are so cold-hearted and devoid of empathy that they would not, quite reasonably, find being accused of having the blood of innocents on their hands to be deeply insulting?

Aww... <sniff>

This is my point. You like to think of yourself as a rational voice in this forum who is not guilty of inane and offensive comments and yet here you are, after accusing a great many people of having blood on their hands. with a snarky denial.

I think before I took offense I'd look at the source of the charge. In this particular case I defy you to point out where I said that "conservatives have the blood of innocents on their hands"? If a similar charge were made against me I'd question the accuser's motivation. I don't subscribe to the notion of "collective guilt" and would simply discount such a specious accusation instead of getting all butt hurt because maybe someone doesn't like me or my politics.

Nice parsing. You asserted that anyone who opposed the Dem's efforts had blood on their hands. I guess there might have been a few liberals among them.

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Talk about “fighting words” Do today’s liberals have any concept of what this term means other than voicing opinions like marriage should be between a man and a woman, men who simply feel like women should not be permitted to use the same public bathrooms as young girls who are only biologically female, all lives matter, men on campuses accused of sexual misconduct should not be deprived of due process, or hunting and killing animals is good fun?

Now that you've had time to cool down maybe you can reformulate this so it's comprehensible. What's it have to do with gun violence and school shootings?

When you claim I have blood on my hands, those are "fighting words," and I say it as calmly as I can.

"marriage should be between a man and a woman" — why?

Why what? This was an example of what outrages liberals.

"men who simply feel like women should not be permitted to use the same public bathrooms as young girls who are only biologically female" — you think it's so "simple" — what about people who have a complex relation to the gender attributed to them at birth and have lived as the opposite gender for a good portion of their lives?

Again

"all lives matter" — except that this feel-good platitude is pretty hollow when contrasted with human history. All lives should matter, sure — but they don't, which is why we have this nifty little slogan.

And yet again

"men on campuses accused of sexual misconduct should not be deprived of due process" — if they're singled out because they're white sports heroes?

And lookee here another attempt at diversion.

"hunting and killing animals is good fun" — you know, I've killed a number of animals in my life. Some were euthanized, some were raised by me for slaughter, and some were hunted and harvested in the wild. I've never considered killing to be "good fun". In fact, the people who do are often people who end up killing other people. There's a word for those types — "creeps".

And again


Look if you are having second thoughts about your claim about who has blood on their hands, then man up and admit it. If you're not then spare us the bullshit and double down.

This was an example of what outrages liberals.

Well, if gun violence is not a cultural phenomenon, what other explanation do you have for the huge discrepancy between our rates of school shootings and those in other countries?

If it's the huge number of firearms then it would stand to reason that laws affecting the supply of weapons and their ease of purchase might not be as useless and ineffective as the gunbunnies contend.

What's obscene is to let the fools who voted for this horror off the hook. That includes many dems, and important media institutions such at the NYT. Yes Bush lied, but far too many people were eager to be fooled and much too happy to jump on the war band wagon.

I never had the patience to decipher all the nuances of the different socialism definitions. I just know I support a system democratically arrived at and democratically maintained. Any authoritarian moves, such as communists employ, rejected.

Socialism is an economic system where the government is in charge of running the businesses.

You could have spared my feelings, now I'm bereft.