I will have to disagree with you, the Left, IS indeed, an organization, or better yet a group of organizations that seem to have the same objectives in mind. Have you ever heard of the Democratic Party, the Communist Party of America, the Peoples Democratic Republic of North Korea, The World Workers Party, The Peoples Republic of China and so forth? All of these organizations are organs of the Left . Some are nations .. there is no corresponding entity on the Right. The so called Religious Right is a loose confederation of churches and religious organizations that do not seem to have the cohesiveness that its Leftist counterparts have. As for wanting different things, I think that, although members of the Left seem to disagree about some things, they seem to agree on the basic core principals. Basically, Ive already outlined them in my post. Im sure that if you were to ask some members of the Left in a rare moment of honesty, they would tell you pretty much what Ive already said.sagegirl said:Karl, Id like to respond to a couple of your criticisms of the "Left"
First off, the left is not some organization, the right and the left represent the variety of opinions that are naturally going to evolve in a free society. Not everyone seeks the same goal and not eveyone believes the same thing. This country allows for the expression and consideration of these sometimes opposing points of view and the debate and exploration of values, opportunities and even morality.
.sagegirl said:The constitution is abused by both right and left, here I will mention the idea of an amendment to ban gay marriages.....or one to ban abortions.....(both as inappropriate as any amendment for equal rights for women) so I think the constitution and the bill of rights stand pretty solid.
Ah yes, the amendment issue . Adding an amendment to the constitution is abuse all of the sudden, is it? To add an amendment to the Constitution requires that the amendment pass through both houses of Congress and that it be ratified by 2/3 of the states within a certain amount of time .. THATS abuse? Was it abuse of the Constitution that gave women the right to vote, and outlawed slavery? Those two events in our history happened because of amendments to the Constitution. Now .. lets talk about the right to an abortion .. that was not an amendment to the Constitution but was granted because of a decision by the Supreme Court. The elected officials of the people in Congress did not decide that women should have the right to an abortion, and 2/3 of the states did not ratify such a decision. That was decided by 5 Supreme Court justices. And what Roe vs. Wade decided was that the voters in the states did not have the right to ban abortion, although the 10 amendment in the Bill of Rights clearly grants that. It also takes away the right to life to a person (i.e. the unborn child being aborted) without legal process as guaranteed under the 14 Amendment. THATS the pro-abortion people say a fetus isnt a person because if it were, suddenly, abortion becomes unconstitutional. Now, onto gay marriage, no Constitutional amendment granted the right to gay marriage, that was forced on the Massachusetts Legislature by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The judiciary does not have the right to dictate what laws the Legislative branch is supposed to enact. So the abuse in both cases is not on the side of the Right, but on the side of the Left.
.sagegirl said:You mention that the left does not support the spread of freedom and democracy......we have not always made wise choices as to who we support in our efforts to promote freedom, and we are evidently more concerned with freedom, and human rights for some more than for others, (Iraq perhaps wasnt the worse case of tyranny and genocide but we have focused a huge amount of energy and shed much blood there)
No, the Left does NOT support the spread of freedom and democracy at all! Lets see here, Stalin, who was a communist wiped out 50 million people, Mao, another communist an additional 30 or 40 million, Lenin, Pol Pot, Castro, 10 or 20 million more. No, Iraq wasnt the worst case of genocide .. Communism was and Communism is a Leftist dogma. Now lets talk about Vietnam . Why did we lose that war? First, the anti-war movement, which was organized and funded mainly by communist organizations, claimed that all they wanted was an end to US involvement in the war. Once our troops pulled out, then the Left sought to get all funding to the South Vietnamese to combat the Communist North ended. And once they succeeded in getting the funding to the Vietnamese defeated in Congress, Saigon fell. And what happened AFTER the fall of Saigon? Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were either killed, tortured or imprisoned. The Vietnamese Communists launched campaigns of aggression against their neighbors. The rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, supported by the Communist regime in Vietnam was responsible for the deaths of over 2 million. But you never hear about that how much blood has to be shed before the Left gets it? No amount will be enough. Because the Left, whether you like to hear it or not, isnt concerned about the blood shed the members of the Left are responsible for only about the blood shed that they can blame the Right for.
..The left probably does have a distrust of big corporations and exploitation of workers and the enviornment but that isnt necessarily hating america. The enron scandal, labor laws and unions, and the epa and the cleaning up of our worst pollution (the superfund) would be examples of problems in this area.
Yes, lets talk about the evils of Capitalism. Is this the same evil Capitalism that has raised the living standard for millions of people, unlike socialism or communism which has brought about destitution, slavery and economic decay to billions? How about the Leftist controlled Labor Unions in this country which force people to join them in order to get work? What do they do with all the money that they collect in dues? It is a well known fact that Labor Unions spend less than 20% of the money they collect for collective bargaining, administration of member issues and for all activities directly involved with the benefits of their members. What do they do with the other 80%? They use it to buy political influence, they use it to finance campaigns, and they do it without paying a single dime in taxes, even though Federal Law requires them to. And guess what political party gets the lions share of union campaign contributions? The Democratic National Committee. In fact, Al Gore would not have been a contender in 2000 if it weren't for the intercession of Big Labor. Many of these Labor Unions have ties to organized crime, especially the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA). LIUNA and its president, Arthur Coia, were big time contributors and supporters of President Clinton. It is a not too well known fact that Clinton had over 100 private meeting with LIUNA President Coia when he was under investigation and almost imminent indictment for racketeering under the RICO statues.
It is also a known fact that Teachers' Unions oppose any type of educational reforms, including teacher competency tests, school vouchers and so on. Even though both have been shown to have positive effects on test scores when implemented. Why? Because the Teachers' Unions don't care about the kids. They only want the dues money. In fact, it has been argued that low test scores are favored by Teachers Unions because it gives them leverage to raise teachers' salaries and hire more teachers. Since 1964, when the teaching industry became unionized via the NEA, test scores of American children have been on a steady downward trend.
.I have already mentioned tolerance and diversity.
On morality.....I dont think anyone should tell me what is moral.....we have laws that dictate what is allowed and disallowed, but morality is an opinion, it is a very personal and hopefully well formulated set of guidelines, which each individual decides to use to make the decisions of their life. If you have a belief in god I would say that you should defer your JUDGEMENT of morality to that higher authority, and be concerned that you YOURSELF act appropriately in your creator's eyes. For myself I do not "believe" in god but I do consider myself to have high moral standards, I attribute that to my upbringing and an innate sense for fairness and respect for others. I frankly feel that you have shown little respect for opinions other than your own.
I think that ultimately the greatest threat to america and its ideal of freedom for all is the attitude that its an exclusive club rather than inclusive.
No one should tell you what to believe in, agreed . But then . You should also be responsible for your actions as well. If you fool around and get pregnant, why should you have a right to terminate an innocent life? Why does another person have to die because you decide to have sex? You are transferring the responsibility to someone else. If you get HIV/AIDS, why do I have to pay increasing medical insurance premiums, why do I have to fund AIDS research for a disease that can be prevented with some common sense (that is abstinence, identifying those individuals that are infected, quarantining them or monitor their activities so that they do not spread the disease)? How is it that you say you dont want someone else telling you what to believe in, yet the Left at the same time enforces speech codes, demonizes anyone that opposes them, mandates sex education, diversity training and so forth in our schools and at work, and through pressure from financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, tries to get abortion spread to countries that oppose such policies? And of course, lets not forget the United Nations . In neighboring Canada, the Left has succeeded in getting hate speech outlawed, where hate speech is anything that they dont like. In Canada, a priest, minister or rabbi can be jailed for teaching that homosexuality is a sin .. hows that for forcing your morals on someone else?