Myths of the left

[The_Basseteer]

5 Myths the Left Has Created About Itself (http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/5_myths_the_left_has_created_a.php)
John Hawkins

Via Hollywood, the mainstream media, and the school systems, the Left has created a number of positive myths about their ideology, none of which stand up to the slightest amount of informed scrutiny.

Liberals are pro-women: No, no: liberals are pro-liberal women -- as long as they know their place. When Hillary Clinton did the most admirable thing in her entire political career, trying to pull out a come-from-behind win against Barack Obama, the long knives on the Left even came out for her.

.....But what Hillary faced was nothing compared to the vile smears liberals level at strong, conservative women. Whether it's photoshopping them into pornography (http://www.rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/03/blogging_while_female_5_conser.php), going after their families, or degrading them with "hate f***" lists (http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/06/playboys_hit_piece_on_conserva.php), the Left does everything it can to destroy women who are courageous enough to stand up to them. Just ask Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Carrie Prejean about it. If liberals hated Al-Qaeda the same way they hate conservative feminist icons, we'd have already won the war on terror by now.

Liberals look out for black Americans: Really? How? By destroying black families with welfare? By championing releasing black criminals back into their communities? By standing up for rioters? By getting promising black college students into schools they're likely to flunk out of via Affirmative Action? By making parasitic buffoons like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton into representatives of black Americans in the eyes of most of the country? The biggest obstacle black Americans face today is not racism; it's the paternalistic, "You poor thing! You need our help to make it day-to-day" attitude of liberals that has shattered the black family in a way that even slavery and Jim Crow laws couldn't.

Liberals are compassionate: Liberals love nothing better than to talk about compassion and caring for the poor -- but, only when other people's money is involved. Studies consistently show (http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2008/07/rwns_peter_schweizer_interview.php) that conservatives give more money to charity than liberals. What's supposed to be compassionate about robbing Peter to pay Paul to vote for you?

Liberals are intellectuals: Liberals portray themselves as brilliant intellectuals who are so much smarter than the riff-raff out there in flyover country. Meanwhile, back in the real world, they run presidential campaigns based on "hope" and "change" and the intellectual roots of their philosophy could be explained by a caveman. Abortion good! People who want to stop abortions bad, bad, bad! Gay marriage good! People who want to protect marriage bad, bad, bad. It doesn't matter whether it's a college professor, a rocket scientist, or Barack Obama -- they all turn into cousin Cletus, the mountain simpleton who lives out by the hog pen, when you try to get them to explain why they believe what they believe.

Liberals are tolerant: Liberals are extremely tolerant -- of people who agree with them or of foreigners who hate America. Everybody else? Not so much. If you happen to say, try to give a conservative speech on a college campus, say that you believe marriage should be between a man and a woman after you're asked about it in a beauty pageant, or believe science has led you to draw a different conclusion than liberals have in regard to global warming, you're not going to see much tolerance on display. In other words, the liberal idea of tolerance is, "I agree with what you say, I'll defend to the death your right to say it -- and the rest of you need to be quiet."

[Spang]

Liberals bad, bad, bad!

[The_Basseteer]

Liberals bad, bad, bad!
‘The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant;
it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.’ President Ronald W. Reagan

[matiah]

‘The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant;
it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.’ President Ronald W. Reagan

genericstamp!

[Spang]

‘The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant;
it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.’ President Ronald W. Reagan

How insulting.

[The_Basseteer]

How insulting.
Only if you feel that it describes you.

[Spang]

Only if you feel that it describes you.

You posted it in response to my mocking of the article and I'm a liberal.

[Tybee]

You posted it in response to my mocking of the article and I'm a liberal.


Is that the same thing as calling conservatives douchebags? Or saying you hate conservatives?

[The_Basseteer]

You posted it in response to my mocking of the article and I'm a liberal.
and you feel insulted...why?

[Spang]

and you feel insulted...why?

The Reagan quote. In other words, liberals aren't ignorant, they're just stupid. It's kind of like me saying, conservatives aren't racist, they're just intolerant.

[sojourner]

You posted it in response to my mocking of the article and I'm a liberal.

which items do you take issue with and why?

Obviously not the last one.

[The_Basseteer]

The Reagan quote. In other words, liberals aren't ignorant, they're just stupid. Stupid means an inability to process information..ignorant means possesing NONE or the WRONG information. Another Reagan quote as an example..."How do you tell a Communist?
Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin.
And how do you tell an anti-Communist?
It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."


Sorry Spang, I can't play anymore..I have to take MammaBasseteer to the doctor..she had a TIA Sunday and we have to get her checked out.

[Tybee]

The Reagan quote. In other words, liberals aren't ignorant, they're just stupid. It's kind of like me saying, conservatives aren't racist, they're just intolerant.




Nah, it's like you saying the GOP has more racists.

You've said worse about conservatives.

[Spang]

which items do you take issue with and why?

Obviously not the last one.

The article is slanted so far to the right, it's a straight line parallel to the ground. I laugh at it and I mock it. It's really not that serious.

[jlynne]

I have to take MammaBasseteer to the doctor..she had a TIA Sunday and we have to get her checked out.

Robert Guillone's PSAs just flashed through my head -- I hope everything turns out well.

[sojourner]

Sorry Spang, I can't play anymore..I have to take MammaBasseteer to the doctor..she had a TIA Sunday and we have to get her checked out.

That doesn't sound good. I hope everything turns out okay.

[NativeSun]

The Reagan quote. In other words, liberals aren't ignorant, they're just stupid. It's kind of like me saying, conservatives aren't racist, they're just intolerant.

No it's saying that they're believing in an illusion, not the reality. And I think his communist comment even better illustrates this.

[Spang]

No it's saying that they're believing in an illusion, not the reality.

What illusion? I'm agnostic.

[sojourner]

What illusion? I'm agnostic.

Quote:Originally Posted by NativeSun
No it's saying that they're believing in an illusion, not the reality.

What illusion? I'm agnostic.

NativeSun, why do we bother?

[Spang]

NativeSun, why do we bother?

Must be all those illusions I believe in.

[sojourner]

The article is slanted so far to the right, it's a straight line parallel to the ground. I laugh at it and I mock it. It's really not that serious.

Liberals are pro-women: I believe that the consensus on this forum was that “pro-women” feminist organizations such as NOW did not support conservative women from sexist attacks as they did liberal women.

Liberals look out for black Americans: Welfare and affirmative action programs did have unattended consequences that did hurt black Americans. I don’t know who sponsored and voted in the relevant laws but since conservative do not care about minorities or the poor it is a pretty safe bet they were sponsored by liberals.

Liberals are compassionate: I believe that liberals are compassionate, but I do think they tend to look for federal governmental solutions more than conservatives.

Liberals are intellectuals: Liberals do not have a corner on the intellectual market.

Much of the writing in this country about intellectuals, going back at least fifty years, has been a literature of lament. We are told that intellectuals are in decline, that the greatest of them have left no successors, indeed, that extinction threatens the genuine species …But this view of intellectuals in decline, sadly or happily, seems to me to be tenable only if one has in mind a restricted conception -- restricted to intellectuals of the left…To describe these changes as the end of intellectuals, however, is to mistake a political shift for a sociological trend. In past several decades, the number and vitality of conservative intellectuals have enormously increased, and many of them, contrary to the conventional picture, flourish outside the academy… Source (http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/libcon.html)

IMO, liberals tend to be idealists and conservative tend to be more pragmatic. I had a political science professor that used to say, “Intellectuals come up with the ideas, democrats enact them into law and republicans made them work.” I think there is a little of truth in that statement.

Communism is a great idea on paper but when you add the human factor and try to implement it in the real world it does not work.

Liberals are tolerant: You have demonstrated how tolerant liberals are.

[Spang]

Liberals are tolerant: You have demonstrated how tolerant liberals are.

I'm guilty of intolerance towards intolerant people. I'm also guilty of lumping those intolerant people in with the more tolerant people of the right-wing. I was being ignorant. I'm also guilty of believing in liberalism. If that's an illusion, then so be it.

And I despise religion.

[NativeSun]

I'm guilty of intolerance towards intolerant people. I'm also guilty of lumping those intolerant people in with the more tolerant people of the right-wing. I was being ignorant. I'm also guilty of believing in liberalism. If that's an illusion, then so be it.

And I despise religion.

Then that actually means you yourself are an intolerant person. How does that make you a better person? Or even right? I may have strong disagreements with those on the Left, and some I would even classify as being beyond paranoia, but I manage to tolerate them. They have every right to their own opinions and beliefs as I do mine. My "job" isn't to be intolerate towards them or denegrate them... it's to prove them wrong. ;)

[Spang]

Then that actually means you yourself are an intolerant person.

Fine. Let's add intolerant to the list of horrible things I am. I'm a horrible person. Absolutely horrible.

[Suzan]

Liberals are pro-women: I believe that the consensus on this forum was that “pro-women” feminist organizations such as NOW did not support conservative women from sexist attacks as they did liberal women.

Liberals look out for black Americans: Welfare and affirmative action programs did have unattended consequences that did hurt black Americans. I don’t know who sponsored and voted in the relevant laws but since conservative do not care about minorities or the poor it is a pretty safe bet they were sponsored by liberals.

Liberals are compassionate: I believe that liberals are compassionate, but I do think they tend to look for federal governmental solutions more than conservatives.

Liberals are intellectuals: Liberals do not have a corner on the intellectual market.

Source (http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/libcon.html)

IMO, liberals tend to be idealists and conservative tend to be more pragmatic. I had a political science professor that used to say, “Intellectuals come up with the ideas, democrats enact them into law and republicans made them work.” I think there is a little of truth in that statement.

Communism is a great idea on paper but when you add the human factor and try to implement it in the real world it does not work.

Liberals are tolerant: You have demonstrated how tolerant liberals are.
I agree that some of the myths are partially true, but you could replace Liberal with almost any other political designation, using the same categories, and find all kind of grievances. There are myths--and stereotypes--about every group.

Have Liberals been excessive in some of their social programs? Yes. Have they been at the forefront of Human Rights issues from Day 1? Absolutely. I applaud them for that. No party gets it exactly right. Look at the mess we're in now, thanks largely to Bush, in the sense that he started the bailouts and we wouldn't have needed them if not for him and all the lavish spending.

[sojourner]

I agree that some of the myths are partially true, but you could replace Liberal with almost any other political designation, using the same categories, and find all kind of grievances. There are myths--and stereotypes--about every group.



Have Liberals been excessive in some of their social programs? Yes. Have they been at the forefront of Human Rights issues from Day 1? Absolutely. I applaud them for that. No party gets it exactly right. Look at the mess we're in now, thanks largely to Bush, in the sense that he started the bailouts and we wouldn't have needed them if not for him and all the lavish spending.[/QUOTE]

My post was not meant to be an attack. Some of my best friends are Liberals :) I gave one a George Bush doll for Christmas a few years back and she really got a kick out of it.

I was just stating how I see things. If I am wrong someone can correct me. I think we all have erroneous stereotypes of various political philosophies/labels. Isn’t part of why we are here to get to know each other better?

I certainly wasn’t criticizing liberals when I said they were idealists. That is a good thing. We need dreamers, thinkers. I think we all have our strengths. My hope was that we could work together here bringing our various gifts and insights and come away with a better understand of political issues and a better approach to solving them than if we were acting alone or within a single party. Then we can put pressure on both major parties as a group. Isn’t that also why we are here?

Maybe I am the one that is an idealist ;)

[Suzan]

My post was not meant to be an attack. Some of my best friends are Liberals :) I gave one a George Bush doll for Christmas a few years back and she really got a kick out of it.

I was just stating how I see things. If I am wrong someone can correct me. I think we all have erroneous stereotypes of various political philosophies/labels. Isn’t part of why we are here to get to know each other better?

I certainly wasn’t criticizing liberals when I said they were idealists. That is a good thing. We need dreamers, thinkers. I think we all have our strengths. My hope was that we could work together here bringing our various gifts and insights and come away with a better understand of political issues and a better approach to solving them than if we were acting alone or within a single party. Then we can put pressure on both major parties as a group. Isn’t that also why we are here?

Maybe I am the one that is an idealist ;)

I can't believe how often I'm agreeing with you lately, lol.

Hope I haven't jinxed it.

[sojourner]

I can't believe how often I'm agreeing with you lately, lol.

Hope I haven't jinxed it.

Don’t worry. I will say something one of these days that will ready set you off. I can say something that I think is innocuous and end up really upsetting someone. It’s a gift I have.