BS: What are liberals made of?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 08:20 PM

Liberals are being used by global tyrannists. Take the new gay high school in New York, as an example (I just can't get enough of this as a good example). It is wrong. I'm a moderate and I say establishing this school is wrong. But you liberals HAVE to support it because, well...you have to TOLERATE, don't you? But this issue was settled by the US Supreme Court with regards to race. Segregated schools were abolished. Separate but equal is not kosher. But now liberals are so tied up in knots that they're back to where they began. They fought AGAINST segregating blacks, but now they're FOR segregating homosexuals! What the hell's wrong with you people? You don't know? I'll TELL you what's wrong.

You are being used to help create world tyranny. As you race your engines going back over the same ground over and over and over again, corporations are bleeding the US dry. Soon, all pension funds will be busted, all jobs will be gone, and the corporate Bush Company types will turn the country over to the Soviet Democrat types. And all the diversions you liberals have pursued...abortion and tree hugging...those issues will suddenly seem unimportant when the economy crashes and the govt starts doling out your twenty bucks a month IF you agree to huddle into the compact cities and take your carcinogenic vaccines like a patriotic American. And by then any protest will be deemed 'terrorist activity', so you'll end up in one of the Supermax prisons if you carp. Just hope it isn't the prison in Inez, Kentucky, which is built over a deep old coal mine that'll hold LOTS of bodies.

You liberals want strong central govt, you're about to get it JUMBO sized.

DG

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 08:14 PM

Dern computers...Yes Fred, it is fer you.

Ebbie... admit a modicum of humor? Good, it's off. Sculpin have spines and smell funny.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 08:04 PM

Join the Compassionate Skeptics!! The Political Party that cares but never whines -- the party of Fred the Cat!


Watch this space....



A

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Deda
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 07:58 PM

I am a liberal but I contain NO vegemite.

It's true, though, that I am made of denim and guacamole. Pretty much entirely.

IMHO, conservatives lead with their (often hard) heads, and liberals lead with their (often soft) hearts. Personally I would much rather be soft-hearted (even if it means also being a bit soft in the head) than hard-headed (if it also means being hard-hearted). I love reason (as in math), but it's very easy to misuse it for very bad ends. History spills over with rationalizations of and by bad people. I think that the world needs more open, loving hearts far more desperately than it needs more thought.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 07:02 PM

And is this is somehow about me, or am I flattering/lampooning myself to ask?

At any rate, be kind. Cat psych teaches that when they do these things, they mean well. I once woke up with a mouse staring at me on my pillow, my cat sitting silently right behind it. I woke up rapidly. But I pretended to her that I ate the mouse.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 07:00 PM

pdq, I agree with you regarding Fred, the Cat. (And that's a compliment, FM.)

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 06:16 PM

I recently re-named my pet feline. He is now Fred the Cat. Fred is an OK mouser but his specialty is lizards. He can spot the slow, lethargic reptiles from hundreds of feet away. He sneaks up on them quietly, then pounces. When one of the weak-witted beasts tries to run for his hole, Fred the Cat reaches out a deft paw and flips the hapless lizard in the air. When it lands Fred goes swat, swat with his paw. The dazed reptile has no hope left. Sometimes Fred brings his quarry to the front door for me to admire. Sometimes they are disemboweled before he shows them off and sometimes after. Fred the Cat just loves to play with his food!

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 05:54 PM

Pdq, I'm afraid.

Okay, but still. Tone is hard to tell in e-mail, I think. And even if it sours, sometimes it's fun to pretend you don't notice, and just march along in an oblivious Gomer Pyle sort of way. Nobody can prove you know better. If no one plays the fool, then everything always ends badly.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 03:39 PM

I think we should start a new party of Compassionate Skepticism, and put Kendall up as its candidate. It would be clear-eyed, hard-nosed and factual, so the conservatives would stop bitching, and it would be humane and creative and firmly compassionate, so the bleeding hearts would have nothing to bitch about anyway. Of course, they would find something on both sides...they always do. :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 03:18 PM

Thanks, Fred, I will save my poem about you for another thread. There seems to be change in tone everywhere, not just Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 02:25 PM

I don't really want to get into the definition of "liberal" vs. "conservative" ( or "Liberal" vs. "Conservative") pissing match but would observe that the gross ignorance of history (or the wilful disregard of fact and subsequent "terminological inexactitude") displayed by Powell in the statement quoted and tyhe agreement with and support of such an idiotic statement by "conservatives" is one thing that tends to get up the noses of 'liberals'.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 01:33 PM

pdq,
No, I'm just trying to play along, and wonder what the guest means by the question. I'm guessing maybe a "good" sense from the previous discussion of forward-thinking constitutional values was being invoked, by someone who would in other contexts use "liberal" differently.

   I'm more a skeptic than a liberal or conservative, but Liberal seems to fit me much better, especially on social issues. Since part of politics involves trying to predict the future, I figure everyone is entitled to make some mistakes. Having my modest intelligence insulted by many conservative "views" hardens me in the liberal camp. I find a lot of conservative views careless about making any semblance of sense, merely masking a predictable and cynical agenda.

The dictionary definition of Existentialism seems to me a pretty good recipe for a cult of self, and celeb worship, all the tiresome "inspiring" self-made man stories of pulling oneself up by whatever seem to tie in fairly nicely. Why is it Freud and existentialists have so little to say about plain old narcissism? Though conservatives may appear to respect "greater good" values in cultural legacy and religion I think there's this inner worm in there, somewhere, sometimes.

Liberals lose me when they make entirely too much sense--like in so many conspiracy theories. Life isn't really like that, it seems to me. And sometimes things matter even though you can't explain it--that's as nice as I can stand to be about it. Whew. I'm spent.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 12:25 PM

It doesn't matter a great deal if you have title to a particular plot of land if you have control over the person who does.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: NicoleC
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 11:59 AM

Yes, Powell's statement would be touching -- if factual. The Mexican-American war springs to mind. The "taming" of the American West. Then there's the Panama Canal, and...

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 11:57 AM

Almost sure it was "Snakes and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails".

Fred: Do you mean liberals "in the good sense" when they do good things and liberals "in the bad sense" when they do bad things?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 11:34 AM

Some international liberals have supported the war. But a lasting and meaningful outcome remains to be seen, and there are and have been plenty of causes for scepticism.

As to which man is liberal, do you mean in the good or bad sense?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 10:10 AM

Powell's statement would be moving, indeed, if it wasn't utter bullshit. The quiet resulted from the audience choking while trying not to laugh in his face.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: kendall
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 10:08 AM

Now dont knock the conservatives, I've spent many happy hours engaged in a battle of wits with them. Most of them have, however, been unarmed.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 07:49 AM

It's not exactly land the USA is after in the classic sense, because official colonization is not politically acceptable anymore. It's market share and control of resources that is their main concern...and a small amount of actual ground for handy strategic military bases, such as Guantanamo in Cuba, and many others in many places, Iraq being the latest. Iraq may serve as a key base in future moves on Iran, Syria, or even Saudi Arabia...we'll have to wait and see who wins the next "pre-emptive war lottery" and upon what excuse.

The planners of these grand strategies care less about the American soldiers who die than they do about the dirt under their own fingernails...unless they are so emotionally naive as to believe their own propaganda. I expect a few of them are.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 06:23 AM

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire-building by George Bush. He answered by saying the following:
"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."

It became very quiet in the room.

via Dr. Leon Flancher

which of these men is the liberal?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Metchosin
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 06:08 AM

Rapaire, I thought the original quote was regarding a "socialist" not a "liberal". Just curious but are the terms "socialist" and "liberal" interchangeable in the US?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 12:10 AM

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 07:54 PM

I thought it was frogs and snails and puppy dog tails.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: DougR
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 07:32 PM

Joe Offer: are you sure you didn't mean snail and nails and puppy dog tails? :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 07:01 PM

"Those who are not liberal at sixteen have no heart, and those who are not conservative at sixty have no mind."
                         --Some dead Englishman of the 19th century.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 06:20 PM

I'd like to bill the entire system for largely wasting my time with the interminable hours I spent in the gulag called "school", when I might better have been actually getting a real education in the real World and enjoying myself too. Not that it was a complete waste...I learned some lessons in psychological survival tactics there, and I learned to avoid large competitive organizations.

I'd also like to bill them for the portion of my tax money which they spent on military endeavours I did not approve of.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Bert
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 05:14 PM

That's a good thought Amos, Let's all bill him for that time lost *GRIN*

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 03 Aug 03 - 04:44 PM

When faced with a governmental budget crisis, a liberal will always say "more money" and a conservative will always say "less spending".

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 11:23 PM

Boy, I'll say. I'm not rich but I would be a lot closer to it if I had back the dough I have lost -- even before any dot-coms. To be wealthy (other than by inheritance) does require a neat combination of energy, action, brains and timing. But in some instances it also involves rip-off escapades. Imagine if Gates was fined at going rates for every American labor hour that was wasted because his products were defective -- reinstalls, reboots, rewriting lost documents, etc. I daresay it would be right up close to his total wealth!

A

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 11:17 PM

I'd be happy to, pdq- show me some? :)

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 10:54 PM

pdq--ouch. I don't think I've ever been remembered and utterly beaten in one breath before.

   Ebbie, I can't help but agree. I've never felt the sort of uncritical support for any liberal president that many people seem to feel for a 3rd-rate conservative one. At best. Even if I believed in what he was doing I'd wish he'd make some passable effort to put it across to the people who disagree--he's not a king and even if he was his doings could still be undone. He's pushing his luck, it seems to me.

Nicole C just for a laugh sometime why don't you help me out? Yes yes yes you mountain flower of andalusia but, you know, I'm trying to figure how people look at it otherwise.

For one thing, hanging on to money isn't so easy as it sounds, and the paranoid-seeming fears of losing their money, among wealthy people I know, aren't really unfounded. It's remarkably easy to lose. Money has effect even if you just park it somewhere. Some of us might as well admit we don't especially seek it partly because we don't want the responsibility, while we're content to judge people who have to do something with it. It may in practical terms effect the whole equation--To be wealthy is to do, and to do is to be. For better or worse, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 10:45 PM

Naw Nicole, I bash Bill because his latest version of windows is slower than my old Apple II plus and because it crashes three times a day and because it has memeory leaks so that you have to reboot every hour or so.

Mudcat itself has a Windows server which needs rebooting about twice a day and a Linux server which needs rebooting about every three months.

Give me a Unix command line and I can write a few shell scripts that will run rings around windows.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 10:23 PM

Admit that some conservatives have a modicum of humor and I'll let ya off. Final offer.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 10:14 PM

Guest/pdq- sculpins? Ewwwwwwwww   Let's negotiate.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: NicoleC
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:57 PM

Then again, Bill has made millions by foisting crap that was slightly less crappy than what else what out there and people were glad to get it. As someone who intimately recalls cryptic Unix command line interfaces, having 14 different pieces of internet software for your strap-in phone modem, and generations of Macs that mysteriously crashed every 2 hours, thank God Bill pushed. I only wish Amigas hadn't been so far ahead of their time that no one wanted a computer that made music and videos and played video games, and so they went out of business.

Think what you may of the software, but "Bill Bashing" is just more classism. Something MUST be wrong with him because he went from this middle class kid to the richest guy in America! When he engages in common (if unsavory) business tactics, it's cause for a federal lawsuit. When a Rockefeller or a Mondavi does the same thing, it's just 'business.'

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:41 PM

OK Ebbie, I'm callin" ya out! Sculpin at 30 paces. Splat! Splat!

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:27 PM

Hmmm, an interesting post NicoleC, on one hand you approve of Bill Gates, who has made millions by foisting an unmitigated heap of crap on an ignorant public.

And then you appear to disapprove of America's kinda mild class structure. If you think America is bad then try England for class discrimination.

However I think that, like me, you are a liberal at heart, because you have obviously put some thought into your posting and have the courage to say what you think.

Your comment "liberals are more likely to question" is probably the most accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:25 PM

Little Hawk: "The original Fathers of the American Revolution and the US Constitution were about as liberal as white people could possibly get at that time in history. Consider that. The conservatives of the time were in the ranks which opposed them and fought for King George and the British Empire. "

I agree with you, LH; it seems inarguable. However, I wonder how dyed-in-the-wool- formerly- known- to- me- as - 'knee-JERKS':) conservatives see that event and its promoters?

I'm JERKing the chain as hard as I can lately and expect to get called on it one of these times and don't mind (pant, pant, pant) but I feel that conservatives tend to be less willing to laugh at themselves than liberals are. Liberals, by and large, are keenly aware of the absurdities of our time.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: NicoleC
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:15 PM

> People who do more, bigger things--they properly exist more, matter more.

I don't think that covers it, because most of the wealthy elite don't DO much at all. Somewhere in their family tree they had a good thief. The descendants then had varying success at hanging on to it or adding to the hoard, and as the adage goes, it takes money to make money.

On the other hand, you have a 100% self-made guy like Bill Gates, who's pretty darn liberal, and gives away hundreds of millions every year (apparently, just because he CAN.) Some would say he's the thief on the family tree.

The US is a society that reveres and awards the accumulation of wealth and celebrity above all other things. We pay lip service to respecting certain non-lucrative trades, like teaching and farming and policing, yet we obviously don't respect them much or these folks wouldn't be at the lower end of the middle class pay scale. Instead, we make celebrities out of serial killers and CEOs who commit massive fraud that causes the deaths of consumers aren't even send to jail.

It's the "American Dream" to be rich and famous. And to think, it used to be owning a home and having 2.4 kids and a Oldsmobile.

I would hesitate to say that conservatives are more likely to hold this value system -- because to some extent all Americans do -- but I think that liberals are more likely to question it without knowing exactly what they are questioning. Nor do I think it's a definition -- politics just doesn't get defined that easy -- but when you think about the typical hot political issues and where idealogies line up, you do see a common thread.

Classism is very much prevalent in the US, we just don't talk about it. We live with those of the same caste, marry those of the same caste, have our kids go to school and church and hang out with kids of the same caste, and most of us die somewhere near where we were born. If a middle-class woman marries a rich man, she's a "gold digger." If a poor man dates a middle class woman, she's "sluming" or has no taste. Crossing the line upward is often greeted with suspicion -- "new money" instead of old money. Crossing the line downward means you are an abject failure, regardless of the circumstance, and your new lower class doesn't want you and your old higher class friends probably don't talk that much with you anymore.

You know, there are societies on this planet where one's status in society is not determined by what one has, but by how much one gives away. Imagine THAT on a political party platform! (It would be followed quickly by obscurity.)

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Bert
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 09:05 PM

Ah Little Hawk, how times change. You mention ol' King George. Of course the guy was 'a little mad'. Nowadays it's illegal in the good old USA to discrimate against those with a mental illness, and it's illegal to fire them which is just what happened to poor ol' George. And it's mostly us liberals who agree with that policy.

Britain and the USA were enemies in those days, and now of course The USA is Britain's greatest friend.

However I have seen nothing in these threads that change my mind that conservatives are made of Vegemite and Liberals of Preparation H.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 08:11 PM

Now, now, Fred. Are you sure it's a floor-wax AND a dessert topping!

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 06:57 PM

Now now, guest pdq,

Saying things like "the liberal knows that he is not at fault"--I think that's what's being most fairly objected to. I'm a liberal and know I am at fault. The fact that others may be more so, if you look at it that way, doesn't absolve me of anything. Nor do I go around dressed in guilt and shame, I just try not to kid myself.

Hm. I've formed an idea that there's an unspoken existential basis for some conservative views. I'm just poking in the dark, trying to figure out what nobody will explain to me. It's like trying to find out when and what my mom has decided I'm going to do for her--I just have to stab at it because she doesn't want to say that she's worked it all out regardless of my schedule.

   But the existential idea that To do is to Be--seems to explain some things about conservative views of fairness and balance. People who do more, bigger things--they properly exist more, matter more. It's not exactly about working-hard=reward or about just kow-towing to the wealthy, those things are just sometimes spurious correlations.

I'm a liberal Socratic To Be is to Do-er, and often find conservatives to be very impressionable. With big good there's big bad, it seems to me, and I don't tend to give extra credit for scale of itself.

And it would help to explain how conservative leaders often seem to view their jobs as more kingly, how this one can behave as though he had a mandate when it could hardly be clearer that he never did. It's the maxim of truth to an individual essence--to be large.

I don't mean any offence. Just keep trying to figure why we see things differently, and conservatives and existentialists both always tend to baffle me, so I drew a link.

And please, I think we've all heard of Sinatra's Do be do be do philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 06:02 PM

It's easy to make fun of liberals...almost as easy as it is to make fun of conservatives.

Anyway, isn't it fairly natural to be concerned about the poor and downtrodden?

I remember when Nixon was going on about his wife's "cloth coat" implying that he was just one of the "little guys", the downtrodden, the common man. Not like those rich, Boston, high society Democrats with their wives wearing mink coats. No sir!

The original Fathers of the American Revolution and the US Constitution were about as liberal as white people could possibly get at that time in history. Consider that. The conservatives of the time were in the ranks which opposed them and fought for King George and the British Empire.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Sam L
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:47 PM

I took Wilco to be speaking of us liberals here on the Mudcat, or else certain things make no general sense at all.

Still, it's rather easy to construe ever speaking OF the poor and downtrodden as thinking you speak FOR them. It's a rather facile characterization, trotted out to counter any concern with fairness, legality, justice. It has an unfortunate tendency to lend itself as an attack against anyone's concerns about anything.

   The framers of the U.S. constitution--what a bunch of self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, intellectual elites, with their holier-than-thou attitudes, thinking they spoke for the poor, oppressed, and downtrodden. And "give us your tired, your poor..." blah blah blah. What pretentious crap.

   Is there a more self-righteous, self-aggrandizing world view ever put on paper than "these truths we hold to be self-evident"?

I hope it's not one of those "personal attacks" if I think better fun could be made of liberals.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:44 PM

Try again.... To be fair to liberals, they get up each morning and see that many things are wrong in the world: poverty, hate, polution, etc. The liberal knows that he is not at fault. The mistake comes when he seeks to lay blame on others rather than attempting to fix the problems. Conservatives are at least equally likely to be the one working hard to fix things.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,Heidebundt Pikelmaas
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:39 PM

Wilco's hatred of German liberals is well known. It amounts to an obsession. Wilco should get treatment. German liberals have done nothing to harm him and have more in common with him than he suspects.

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:34 PM

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:22 PM

Quote, wilco: "pre-conceived notions, self-righteousness, self-aggrandizing world views, bigotry based on a bogus intellectual elitism, deliberatly poor communicative skills, bogus and pretentious "holier-than-thou" attitudes. An unfortunate tendency to think they "speak for the poor and downtrodden." And, I predict, a propensity for personal attacks and a failure to reason. AND, Wolfgang: It's a close to perfect description of what the German 'Liberals' are.
...the 'party for those who earn more than average'." (I know that last bit doesn't fit the US model.)

So I take it that we are not speaking of American liberals, wilco?

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 05:04 PM

I agree with nearly every word you have written, Wilco. It's a close to perfect description of what the German 'Liberals' are. Only that bit about An unfortunate tendency to think they "speak for the poor and downtrodden." doesn't fit. Sorry, but they don't have that tendency at all. They have called themselves the 'party for those who earn more than average'.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What are liberals made of?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 03 - 04:23 PM

Little Hawk:

I am sorry but you're mistaken.

The United States of America is the best nation on the planet. Or used to be, at least. And fortunately it is too big to corrupt quickly.

A