here's a sample of how, at least some, on the other side see conservative rhetoric and what they're afraid it means:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinio...?th&emc=th

(06-15-2009 08:26 AM)kinderowl Wrote:  here's a sample of how, at least some, on the other side see conservative rhetoric and what they're afraid it means:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinio...?th&emc=th

Good to see that stereotyping, exageration, and hate are not limited just to one side.

100 emails out of what, 20,000,000 viewers? Clear evidence that only someone like Smith, who has his roots deep in the conservative underground(NYT), could understand. Probably heard it at a VRWC meeting. Right before they boiled out on the streets, waving their guns...

There are nuts on both sides. To say the other side's idiots represent the majority...

I don't think abortions should happen in the last month, but it was legal where he did it, so I would not have intervened. That some weirdo did so and in the worst possible way does not invalidate my views or indicate that I support murder. Frankly, i am getting tired of being told that. Just because a liberal says it doesn't make it true. Perhaps it is those who support the abortion of late-term babies who support murder, but it damn sure isn't me.

Sure some people oppose Obama and hate him, just like some people opposed Bush and hated him. I wonder how long until we see in print someone saying Obama is the most evil man in the world. I saw that about Bush, more than once, mixed in with the revelations that gas prices were high because he was putting money in the pockets of his rich friends. Obama is getting better treatment than Bush did. Sounds to me like the libs can dish it out, but can't take it. maybe that's why so many have left this forum.

Read the column again. This time wait until after you've read it to decide what it says. Maybe that's why you haven't been getting many responses.

EDIT: The column just clearly wasn't about you or people like you. Frankly, your victim act is getting old. Every time anybody calls out any conservative for doing or saying something dumb, we get this indignant response of, "How dare you associate OptimisticOwl with that person!" Well, uh, nobody did.

A lot of it wasn't about the wingnut extremists either. An endorsement of assassination by a Limbaugh fill-in (I'm a bit surprised Limbaugh himself didn't do it) may not be surprising any more, but it is still dangerous, considering how popular those shows are. But where the column gets really interesting is after "What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment."

(06-16-2009 07:58 AM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Read the column again. This time wait until after you've read it to decide what it says. Maybe that's why you haven't been getting many responses.

EDIT: The column just clearly wasn't about you or people like you. Frankly, your victim act is getting old. Every time anybody calls out any conservative for doing or saying something dumb, we get this indignant response of, "How dare you associate OptimisticOwl with that person!" Well, uh, nobody did.

A lot of it wasn't about the wingnut extremists either. An endorsement of assassination by a Limbaugh fill-in (I'm a bit surprised Limbaugh himself didn't do it) may not be surprising any more, but it is still dangerous, considering how popular those shows are. But where the column gets really interesting is after "What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment."

Liberals are pointyheaded idiots. Liberals like to kill babies and release murderers. People who support liberals support these policies.

Ok, before someone starts quoting me out of context, did you feel even a smidgen of accusation by association? I do, every time some does a knee-jerk response about conservatives, like the ones we are getting re the Tiller and Museum killings. Those two killers don't represent any more than tiny splinters of conservatism, yet the kneejerk reaction is to paint with the broad brush. Try to separate those who oppose what Tiller was doing from the tiny subset of those who would take that opposition to the farthest extreme. An attack on tiller's practices is neither a defense of nor an incitement to murder.

BTW, here's the context. I said the first paragraph as an example, it does not reflect my opinions or neccesarily the opinions of any conservative, individually or in toto. Please, noboody put my statement in a newspaper column as an example of the hate rhetoric coming from the mad blood lust on the right.

The only way to fight the stereotyping of oneself is to stand up and protest it. Sorry if my lack of silent acceptance of other people's perceptions of me and groups of which I consider myself a member offends you, and i will stop it. Just as some as I stop being stereotyped as an oppressor and racist, etc. You don't, but some people do, and many others act off those stereotypes without thinking. Apparently it is OK for some other groups to stand up and protest stereotyping, just not the groups I am in.

I heard Mark Davis tell that joke. As i remember it, a caller had asked about it. It was clearly a joke, not a call to arms. Mark Davis is one of the nicest people you could ever want to meet. The last thing he would do is "endorse" assasination. This is exactly the kind of misrepresentation and escalation that was in the article. He's on the radio as we speak. Why not call him and ask him about his "endosement" of "assasination"?

I heard plenty of "endorsements of assasination" over the last eight years. Some were jokes, some just wishful thing, none serious. A few years back, the people in the elevator might have been Bush, Gingrich, Cheney. Jokes, of course. Who wouldn't endorse the killing of the most evil man on Earth? If I had thought any of them were serious, i would have reported them to the Secret Service. I don't support murder. Have you turned Mark in yet? Better get on it, or you could be taken as a co-conspirator. Heck, the Davis joke is just a retread of a joke that has been around for decades, maybe centuries. maybe two thousand years ago, people were making jokes about the Centurion, the proconsul, and the emperor in the baths. You have two arrows.

Of course, maybe endosement of assasination was just a poor choice of words on your part. maybe you didn't really mean what you seemed to say. I think a lot of those quoted in the article could make the same claim. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and I will extend the same to you. Or maybe you meant what you said. Only you know.

So, give me a rundown of what the article really says. If you can do it in a sentence or two, i would appreciate that.

(06-15-2009 08:26 AM)kinderowl Wrote:  here's a sample of how, at least some, on the other side see conservative rhetoric and what they're afraid it means:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinio...?th&emc=th

Let me respond by saying how someone on the other side (if you can call a libertarian, social liberal, fiscal conservative the other side) sees the rhetoric coming out of the Obama administration.

For the first time I have feelings that I understand how Jews must have felt in Nazi Germany. Obama has made it very clear that he has no use for successful people like me. He has every intention of screwing us to the wall to fund his efforts to buy the votes of (notice that I did not say "help" but "buy the votes of") the poor and those who feel sorry for themselves. My choice of words is intentional. I don't think he or his fellow liberals have any intention of actually helping them climb out of poverty. Keep them poor, keep them dependent on handouts, keep them voting democrat. I feel that Obama has sent me an explicit message that he is going to try as hard as he can to make my life miserable. That's what I see in his policies. To say that I am less than thrilled is a huge understatement.

I'm trying to figure out what I should do about it.

And I must be WAY on the other side, because I would have exactly the same criticism about Shrub, only to a lesser degree. I think the US is in a serious world of hurt and I don't see any reason for optimism about our prospects of getting better.

If you want a one-sentence summary I probably can't do better than the sentence I quoted. To be fair I think the author does stretch things a bit. Frank Gaffney and Saul Anuzis aren't exactly running the Republican Party these days. I don't think their views represent most conservatives, nor does the column suggest that they do. But they also aren't lone-wolf nutjobs.

Jon Voight's speech was just creepy. I assume by "bring an end to this false prophet Obama," he meant defeat him in 2012, but that's a bizarre word choice. To me the more immediate need for the Republicans is to figure out what they want to do instead. If they can't do that over the next 3 years, they don't have much chance in the election. You may be thinking, well, he's just an actor, but the speech was played to applause at a Republican fundraiser. Besides, it's not like conservatives don't gleefully jump all over every dumb thing Alec Baldwin or Barbra Streisand says.

You took Mark Davis's statement as a joke. Even if it weren't a tired rehash as you claim, it's not very funny. "Ha ha, let's shoot the majority leader -- twice! Ha ha ha! Get it? Shoot the majority leader! With your gun! Get it?" Obviously Camille Paglia didn't take it as a joke. Maybe she doesn't have your sense of humor. Her online column has the audio. If he wants to joke I would recommend getting better material and working a lot on the delivery.

I think the big problem is that people don't have a good feel for how to constructively talk about policy disagreements. That goes for both sides, but the talk-radio format has really worsened things. Imagine if I wrote a blog entry urging readers to key any car that has Republican bumper stickers. Hey, it was just a joke! Obviously! It's not MY fault that somebody took it literally and keyed your car.

FTR again I'm no longer a liberal. I share many of your concerns about Obama, and I just can't stand Pelosi. I freed myself from the labels and the dogmas, and it is great.

(06-16-2009 11:53 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-15-2009 08:26 AM)kinderowl Wrote:  here's a sample of how, at least some, on the other side see conservative rhetoric and what they're afraid it means:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinio...?th&emc=th

Let me respond by saying how someone on the other side (if you can call a libertarian, social liberal, fiscal conservative the other side) sees the rhetoric coming out of the Obama administration.

For the first time I have feelings that I understand how Jews must have felt in Nazi Germany. Obama has made it very clear that he has no use for successful people like me. He has every intention of screwing us to the wall to fund his efforts to buy the votes of (notice that I did not say "help" but "buy the votes of") the poor and those who feel sorry for themselves. My choice of words is intentional. I don't think he or his fellow liberals have any intention of actually helping them climb out of poverty. Keep them poor, keep them dependent on handouts, keep them voting democrat. I feel that Obama has sent me an explicit message that he is going to try as hard as he can to make my life miserable. That's what I see in his policies. To say that I am less than thrilled is a huge understatement.

I'm trying to figure out what I should do about it.

And I must be WAY on the other side, because I would have exactly the same criticism about Shrub, only to a lesser degree. I think the US is in a serious world of hurt and I don't see any reason for optimism about our prospects of getting better.

Pretty good example for the OP. Higher marks would have come if you kept in your contention from the Spin Room that Obama was after you for being white-skinned and blue-eyed, instead of just successful.

I doubt too many Jews in Nazi Germany would have trouble trying to figure out what to do about their situation.

(06-16-2009 01:10 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  You took Mark Davis's statement as a joke. Even if it weren't a tired rehash as you claim, it's not very funny. "Ha ha, let's shoot the majority leader -- twice! Ha ha ha! Get it? Shoot the majority leader! With your gun! Get it?" Obviously Camille Paglia didn't take it as a joke. Maybe she doesn't have your sense of humor. Her online column has the audio. If he wants to joke I would recommend getting better material and working a lot on the delivery.

Of course it was a joke. Don't tell me you or anyone thinking took it as a exhortation for anybody to shoot anybody. When Henny Youngman said "Take my wife...please!", did you or anyone else take it as an exhortation to kidnap hs wife? If someone had kidnapped her, would it have been his fault? What was Kerry's "botched" joke? Was it really a joke? When Letterman made his joke about palin's daughter, the audience laughed. i guess they thought that was funny. I didn't. I thought it was a mean-spirited personal attack, but...people laughed.
Sometimes people laugh at sick jokes. But it was a joke, for heaven's sake, not an appeal to people to commit rape. Better material and delivery? Absolutely. For both letterman and Davis. I would further recommend that Davis stay away from attempts at humor. But, yeah it was a joke, not a directive.

yeah, Voight was creepy, and I cringed, because I knew that some people would take that diatribe as being the Conservative Manifesto. I knew that some people would jump on that to attack not only Voight, but all conservatives of whatever kind.

Urging people to key a car is just that - urging. No one was urging anyone to shoot anybody. Not a parallel. Now if you made a joke on your blog about a guy keying a car thinking it belonged to someone else, and it turned out it was the car he just won in a raffle, does that qualify as "urging" people to key cars? If someone actually keys a car, is that because of you?

yeah, labels are a problem. sometimes i am conservative, sometimes Republican, sometimes I'm even a liberal. Depends on the situation. Voted for a Democrat in 2004 for president, just not the one the DNC wanted me to vote for. Maybe if I were in Europe, I could more precisely identify myself as a Social Democrat, or a Financialist, or a Green Flag party member. Can't get those subtle distinctions here. I think that truth be told, I am a party of one. I guess i am a Liberal Republican Conservative Democrat. Completely different from you, who must be a Conservative Liberal Democratic Republicanizer.(It's a JOKE, for goodness sake! OK, I apologize for putting you into a box with a label, especially since it's the the wrong box. Wait a minute, that's MY problem. The one I am not supposed to mention.)

(06-16-2009 01:37 PM)At Ease Wrote:  I doubt too many Jews in Nazi Germany would have trouble trying to figure out what to do about their situation.

Recognizing that they were in a bad spot, yes. But knowing what to do about it and then actually doing it is another matter. It is very tough to leave one's home, family relatives, job, business, etc., especially if the regime won't let your wealth go with you.

A lot of Jews left, but many stayed, for one reason or another, some hoping that things would get better, or at least no worse, and ended up as part of the six million.

If it was easy to leave, i think a lot of people would leave now, but difficulties in moving people and assets, and family/job/personal ties will keep most of them here, until it is either better or too late.

Did Alec Baldwin move away as he threatened in 2001? I honestly have no idea, but i remember his saying that he would leave if Bush was president. I suspect that his job kept him here.

(06-16-2009 01:10 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  Jon Voight's speech was just creepy. I assume by "bring an end to this false prophet Obama," he meant defeat him in 2012, but that's a bizarre word choice. To me the more immediate need for the Republicans is to figure out what they want to do instead. If they can't do that over the next 3 years, they don't have much chance in the election. You may be thinking, well, he's just an actor, but the speech was played to applause at a Republican fundraiser.

Bring an end to the false prophet means defeat Obama's minions such as Pelosi, Reid, Waxman, Rangel in 2010.

The Republicans know what they have to do: Can the morality and religious right wedge issues and focus on Obama's insane spending and taxation issues, along with garbage such as GM and Chrysler.

One strike the Republicans have against them is that the mainstream media is utterly fascinated and captivated by Obama. That is scary for me. ABC News is giving Obama an open platform to talk about his health care takeover--without an opportunity for critical response. Its going to be tough to get the Republican message out with a biased media.

Give the Democrats enough rope, they will hang themselves in November 2010.

(06-16-2009 04:33 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  yeah, labels are a problem. sometimes i am conservative, sometimes Republican, sometimes I'm even a liberal. Depends on the situation. Voted for a Democrat in 2004 for president, just not the one the DNC wanted me to vote for. Maybe if I were in Europe, I could more precisely identify myself as a Social Democrat, or a Financialist, or a Green Flag party member. Can't get those subtle distinctions here. I think that truth be told, I am a party of one. I guess i am a Liberal Republican Conservative Democrat. Completely different from you, who must be a Conservative Liberal Democratic Republicanizer.

(06-16-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Republicans know what they have to do: Can the morality and religious right wedge issues and focus on Obama's insane spending and taxation issues, along with garbage such as GM and Chrysler.

For me their actions from '00 to '08 are likely to speak louder than their campaign-trail words. But from a rhetoric standpoint, I would very much like a discussion of those fiscal issues as opposed to "If you're not with us you're against us" vs. "Hope Change."

(06-16-2009 10:46 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-16-2009 07:06 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The Republicans know what they have to do: Can the morality and religious right wedge issues and focus on Obama's insane spending and taxation issues, along with garbage such as GM and Chrysler.

For me their actions from '00 to '08 are likely to speak louder than their campaign-trail words. But from a rhetoric standpoint, I would very much like a discussion of those fiscal issues as opposed to "If you're not with us you're against us" vs. "Hope Change."

The "you are with us or against us" was an effective statement at the itme it was made... just a couple of weeks after 9/11. It meant that other nations (especially in the Islamic World) couldn't just ignore the situation and gave them justification to clamp down on their own domestic jihadis as well as fundraising that went to support terrorist organizations.

But fiscal and "size of government" issues will be at the front of the campaign, especially after the garbage Obama proposed today.

(06-16-2009 10:38 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-16-2009 04:33 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  yeah, labels are a problem. sometimes i am conservative, sometimes Republican, sometimes I'm even a liberal. Depends on the situation. Voted for a Democrat in 2004 for president, just not the one the DNC wanted me to vote for. Maybe if I were in Europe, I could more precisely identify myself as a Social Democrat, or a Financialist, or a Green Flag party member. Can't get those subtle distinctions here. I think that truth be told, I am a party of one. I guess i am a Liberal Republican Conservative Democrat. Completely different from you, who must be a Conservative Liberal Democratic Republicanizer.

And this is only PART of the problem.

Since when is murder a "conservative" issue? It may be a religious issue, but religion is not only borne by the right. People who support murder of abortionists are extremists/terrorists... as are people who support murder/assault of loggers... Hunters... SUV drivers... CEOs etc. That is not a conservative OR liberal position...

Second, the article they quote about spending is misleading at best. I will admit up front to not reading every detail, but it seems to imply that over 8 years, "Bush" was responsible for roughly 1/3 of the increase in the deficit... Of course, that was based upon an ESTIMATE of the revenues and expenses under Clinton carried forward... which is by definition... wrong... and though it could have been wrong in either direction... I've rarely seen our government under either party OUTPERFORM CBO estimates... In fact, as soon as COngress saw projected surplusses, they likely started spending tomorrows money... Also, Bush doesn't actually spend much money... but we'll let that go... and at least a decent portion of the funding was 9/11-War on Terror related and hard to differentiate between what Bush DID spend, and what another President WOULD have spent. Not denying it would likely have had different priorities, just that one cannot say with any certainty that other Presidents would have spent (actually, proposed or spent) less. Some would have no doubt spent more... and NOT just on Bombs.

Finally, and again, I didn't read every detail... but the article seems to imply that Obama has not yet spent in his first 150 days as much as Bush did in 8 years... Is that REALLY a surprise?? Especially in that 95% of TARP hasn't been funded yet... the majority of the stimulus bill funds in the next few years, and not immediately... and we haven't even begun to spend money on his proposed reforms... much less the things he'll have to spend money on to get them passed... or the cost of the unintended consequences... which happen in EVERY budget.


In other words... My problem with the "talking points" that BOTH sides put out is that they aren't accurate. They are entirely misleading, and in many cases complete fabrications.... Like Obama is not a citizen, and Bush spent more than Obama has. Both can be supported by things that each side claims are "facts", but neither are actually facts to anyone willing to do a little investigation and not simply believe it because they heard it at a party and it was printed in the paper... (not saying anyone in this thread... but certainly we all know people who believe everything they read on certain topics)

(06-17-2009 04:18 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The "you are with us or against us" was an effective statement at the itme it was made... just a couple of weeks after 9/11. It meant that other nations (especially in the Islamic World) couldn't just ignore the situation and gave them justification to clamp down on their own domestic jihadis as well as fundraising that went to support terrorist organizations.

That was the original context when Bush first said it. Then it got broadened to mean that anybody who dared disagree with the neocons about how to combat terrorism was implicitly supporting the terrorists. And it was effective for a while, just as Hope/Change has been effective, and will continue to be for a while.

The fiscal argument just seems to me like pot vs. kettle. We're talking about the people who brought us 8 years of record-shattering deficits and a trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout.

(06-17-2009 07:16 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  Finally, and again, I didn't read every detail... but the article seems to imply that Obama has not yet spent in his first 150 days as much as Bush did in 8 years...

That's not what it says.

(06-17-2009 08:43 PM)Gravy Owl Wrote:  

(06-17-2009 04:18 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  The "you are with us or against us" was an effective statement at the itme it was made... just a couple of weeks after 9/11. It meant that other nations (especially in the Islamic World) couldn't just ignore the situation and gave them justification to clamp down on their own domestic jihadis as well as fundraising that went to support terrorist organizations.

That was the original context when Bush first said it. Then it got broadened to mean that anybody who dared disagree with the neocons about how to combat terrorism was implicitly supporting the terrorists. And it was effective for a while, just as Hope/Change has been effective, and will continue to be for a while.

The fiscal argument just seems to me like pot vs. kettle. We're talking about the people who brought us 8 years of record-shattering deficits and a trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout.

One thing you need to realize is that if the Feds had actually bought up all the "garbage paper" with the original $750 billion allocated in October then we might not be in this mess.

They could have bought up all the garbage, AT A DISCOUNT, got it off the Bank's Ballance Sheets, and the Feds eat the loss. They did it before with the RTC back in the 80's.

Instead they let it drag on and let the original $750 billion "evolve and metamorphize" into bailouts for GM, AIG, etc. as well as the Banks.

I bet GM wishes they went into Chapter 11 last fall--without taking any Federal funds.--the managment would still have the company.

(06-16-2009 04:44 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Did Alec Baldwin move away as he threatened in 2001? I honestly have no idea, but i remember his saying that he would leave if Bush was president. I suspect that his job kept him here.

No, Baldwin stayed, unfortunately. The thing about rich liberals is that when push comes to shove, being effectively rich is a whole lot dearer to them than being effectively liberal.* But the fact that a celebrity's political pronouncements prove to be ill-considered, insincere, and empty is not surprising. The surprising (and depressing) thing is that people continue to treat the pronouncements of celebrities as meaningful.

*A related phenomenon, discussed in other threads, is that people who advocate tax increases never, and I mean NEVER, voluntarily overpay their own taxes. Why, I don't know.

(06-16-2009 01:37 PM)At Ease Wrote:  Pretty good example for the OP. Higher marks would have come if you kept in your contention from the Spin Room that Obama was after you for being white-skinned and blue-eyed, instead of just successful.
I doubt too many Jews in Nazi Germany would have trouble trying to figure out what to do about their situation.

In the future, if you wish to quote me, kindly quote me correctly.

My reference to "blue-eyed white people" was not about Obama at all. It was a qoute from President Lula da Silva of Brasil. The spin room post in which it appeared was commenting that my intial plan to move to Brasil was still under consideration, but that Lula's racist comment had given me second thoughts.

At this point I see three options:
1. Stay here and subject myself to Obama's socialism;
2. Go to Brasil and subject myself to Lula's racism;
3. Find some third country.

Decision still isn't made or executed. I'm still gathering facts. I will say that, based upon what I know about both men, I'm more comfortable at this point taking chances with Lula's racist war against "blue-eyed white men" than with Obama's socialist war against the successful people in our society. A couple of reasons why I feel that way are (1) Lula is kind of regarded as a bit of a harmless joke by many Brasilians, and (2) Brasil remains the most color-blind society I know anywhere, so that racism in any form has a lot of social intertia to overcome.

As I write this from an internet cafe in Durban, South Africa, I am becoming far more aware that, although I'm retired military and consider myself a patriot, I have experienced a lot of the world and there are many places outside the US where I could live.

At any rate, I do not appreciate your taking something that was about as far from a racist attack against Obama as possible and trying to twist it into something it was and is not. That seems to be one of the in-vogue liberal mantras--if anybody criticizes Obama, characterize it as a racist attack; that shoe doesn't fit this time, and I won't wear it. I feel that an apology is in order, but I have no idea whether you are a big enough person or not to do that, so I'll just not hold my breath.

(06-17-2009 09:19 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  I bet GM wishes they went into Chapter 11 last fall--without taking any Federal funds.--the managment would still have the company.

i dunno about that. the reality of bankruptcy is that debtor in possession financing has been getting really hard to find for the last 2 years. that difficulty means that "management" typically isn't really vested in the company's management because the creditors' committee or DIP financers really end up calling the shots.