langal: I do have friends that voted for McCain. I don't consider them stupid a-holes. I only consider them stupid. I consider Republicans in power a-holes. I certainly don't consider all or most or necessarily any GOP'ers to be racist. In fact, I've only brought up race in very specific circumstances. I don't attribute criticism of Obama to racism (though I'm certain there is some of that out there). But I don't need those fringe stereotypes to consider Republican voters to be ignorant. I only need to know that they have been lied to and manipulated in blatantly obvious ways and they went for it. And, by and large, they're going for it still. Those people are suckers. I'm not saying you're one, if you don't fall for all the BS the GOP is selling these days. I'm just saying most Republicans are. Because the natural thing to do in such a situation, when it's gone on this long, would be to leave the party. Or at least to stop identifying that way. When the Republican leadership behaves the way it does (and here I'm talking about McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, Steele, Palin, Cheney, McCain, take your pick) and people still identify with the party as their own, yes, sorry, that's ignorance. If you get lied to, over and over again, and your response is to clap and buy the t-shirt and the bumper sticker from the ones that lied to you, you're ignorant.
No. basso stands out because he acts like a turd. Nobody here is anywhere near as turdy as him. Of course he stands out.
I've got no problem calling people out for their behavior. Of course basso's behavior stands out. This is not about allowing Chuck Grassley to claim that there will be death panels or attributing anything Michelle Bachman says simply to a difference in morals and value. The point is that it is too easy to assume that they're behavior is nothing more than ignorance and dishonesty. It goes deeper than that. It is based on a very real difference in how people think and what people value. I think basso honestly believes what he believes, and he thinks you (his ideological opposite) are the one who engages in dirty tricks and refuses to debate honestly. I've engaged basso in discussion several times. And sure, when I (in my opinion) successfully countered one of his points he never really responded to it. But I got a much better sense of what he is really thinking and the points he is trying to make. I disagreed with them, but the reasoning I had for disagreement was strengthened by my greater understanding. And again, I'm not saying everybody should try to engage him or others like that in discussion. But it is just too easy and in my opinion wrong to dismiss the rationale behind those beliefs, and it really does cause things to go into a vicious cycle that makes real discussion difficult. The Obama Health Care Speech thread doesn't have to be a rarity, and I don't think it's basso's fault that it is.
The naivety of your line of thinking is that you're comparing a misdemeanor-vs- felony situation to an orange-vs-apple situation. I'm a foreigner having lived in the U.S. for a long time; have had good health insurance; probably will benefit from tax cut more than ordinary American citizens; at a personal level have far more conservative friends than liberal friends; love the Bushes and think they're decent men (not Cheney though). The above said, I've come to this conclusion after observing American politics for over a decade: I'm not sure whether I will join the Democratic party when I eventually obtain the privilege of citizenship; but I sure "ain't gonna" touch the Republican party even with a 10-foot-long rod. And here's why: Dems: if you're not with us, get out of the way. Hence the shoutings, the name callings, the endless posts by BJs, the street demonstrations, etc. Repubs: if you're not with us, you die. Hence the armed town hall craziness, the laughable lies, the un-Americanizations, the promotion of hatred and violence by their "elite class" such as the Limbaughs and the Becks, the McArthyist zealors... The Bassos might be genuinely ignorant with no evil intentions. But if what your kind believes produces the acts of the Timothy McVeighs, then you're necessarily evil performance-wise.
Tim McVeigh was certainly anti-government, but no amount of conservative rhetoric, lies about an "evil government", or screaming partisans, would have inspired him to do what he did. He was motivated because he watched his government murder nearly 100 people in the Waco Massacre, on orders from the Attorney General.
Seems like a good trade for republicans liberals aren't really unamerican so it's kinda worthless and to trade it for ignorance is quite the deal shrewd move for the repubs. Now they can still go after the dems on their other weaknesses and maybe pick up some of the minority votes having dropped the ignorance problem
This is wrong. No liberal on the board asks for debate and runs away from it the way that basso does. No liberal on the board posts crap that is demonstrably false and starts new threads on it when an existing thread would do just fine. basso doesn't stand out because the board is liberal. basso stands out because of the disregard for truth, and honest debate he regularly displays.
Uh, he was precisely motivated by lies about an evil government, and extreme right wing propaganda (see, e.g. the Turner diaries) which preached the same paranoid fantasies that Glenn Beck et al. preach today (internment camps, marxist government programs, etc). Honestly, it's actually kind of surprising and mildly disgusting of you to try to pin the "Waco Massacre" and Janet Reno as the cause of the OKC bombing and mitigate the blame on McVeigh, Nichols, and the rest of the hate brigade.
If you do something because you are told to do it without thinking it through rationally then you are the problem. Not what you were or were not told to do. Sorry, responsibility on the individual. Because an individual can take what he is told or what he hears and twist it to his own agenda. I can guarantee you no part of the messages that McVeigh heard were to blow up a building in OKC. He put that part in there himself.
Basso stands out because knuckleheads like yourself try to engage him in debate when he clearly has a history of not showing any remote interest in that. Why the few of you who continue to respond to him with them same rhetoric of why he is wrong instead of just IGNORING him is beyond me. You look like bigger fools than he does.
So let's say a Glenn Beck says that Obama hates whites and wants to take people's guns away so that he can put them in an internment camp - you are saying that if somebody hears this, believes this and acts on it and engages in armed violence against the government , there is no culpability on his part? Sorry but that this simply not a credible or rational argument.
Wow, this is a disappointment. A thread about how & why the 2 sides don't understand each other..both with good intentions..has basically been hijacked into a thread from one extreme end of the politcal spectrum doing nothing but proving the article correct. Meanwhile..it obvious that very few people actually read the article. Geesh, I don't think we'll never come together as a country. Is it just me, or is the internet just obliterating the Moderates of the U.S. with political bashing from half-truth information on behalf of BOTH sides?
How is pointing out that Tim McVeigh was motivated by anti-government paranoia an extremist position? It's simply a fact. There's no "two sides of the argument" for that.
Actually, I agree with you on that point. MY post was about the thread in general..not your thoughts on McVeigh. If I was talking McVeigh, I would have quoted you.
Yeah. Basso serves as an easy foil for some members to shoot down. In order to play that weird game, responders deeply have to enjoy their exchanges with Basso.
I've actually gotten quite disillusioned with the GOP myself. I guess it also matters where you live. I'd probably be considered a liberal if I was in Texas.
McVeigh's own words, unedited: I'm not blaming Janet Reno for Oklahoma City at all. I'm just saying that McVeigh's motives were tied directly to reaction to evil committed by our government that he witnessed, and not some anti-government screed.
