nakedemperor
Senior Member
Political punditry has become excruciatingly painful for me to listen to. Turn on CNN. Listen to Paul Begala spin an issue 100 revolutions to the left, then let Tucker Carlson spin the same issue 100 revolutions to the right. In a country whose political discourse is dominated by what essentially amounts to soundbyte pornography, somehow, someway, listening to two antithetical pieces of propaganda somehow passes for legitimate debate. The frustrating thing about arguing politics is the way in which one can wriggle out from any indefensible position or muddy the argument just enough to cause a draw. Listen to Paul: Bush went AWOL from the service! Tucker replies, Kerry didnt deserve his medals, and spent just four months in Vietnam! Paul retorts, How can you call into question the service record of an America hero? Tucker, enraged, responds, He doesnt love his country enough to invade a sovereign nation to protect his people! Paul sputters, WMDs! Tucker spits, War crimes! Cocaine! Flip-flop!
Two informed partisan hacks could, theoretically, continue in a like manner ad infinitum. The formula is simple: respond to a point with a counterpoint; respond to the counterpoint with a sentence beginning with Yeah, but your candidate (Essentially shifting the axis of the debate, and opening up several new channels for the discourse to flow into); respond to this with either a defense of your candidates position, or re-re-position the debate with yet another, Yeah, but your candidate statement; lather, rinse, repeat. Ad nauseum.
That being said, I will now perform a one-man show illuminating the inner-monologue of a Northeast Corridor liberal after the November 2nd elections. Ahem.
Those least likely to be personally affected by terrorism, that is, those least likely to be blown up by an militant Islamofascist on their way to work, have deemed terrorism the most important issue. They themselves have essentially retained the President to keep them safe. Whoa, whoa, hold on their. To keep them safe? No, no. To keep us safe. To confuse their altruism with selfishness would be so typically liberal. Obviously they had the New Yorkers in mind when they voted for George W. Bush. Obviously they were fully aware that they were sentencing their children and grand-children to lives marked by dealing with a debt crisis looming not so far down the road. Obviously they trusted Dubya to change policy in the face of failed policy so as to rescue their health care, and to stop leaving children behind.
The morally upright, the devout, the heartland families voted to retain a President whose convictions were stronger, whose morals were more upright; they voted to retain a President who talks like them. They voted to retain a good old boy, a straight shooter who always said exactly what he meant, never lied to you, and whose first priority was keeping the family values strong (after he kept the family safe from the evil-doers). To say they retained the President to keep the homos down would be an exaggeration and a falsehood. The specifics are not important. The moral fiber is whats important; the Texas drawl, the emotive eyebrow gesticulations, the faith worn ostentatiously on his sleeve. The no apologies faith in Jesus Christ transcends social security and health care and the minimum wage. The Presidents values have convinced Americans not to vote in their own self-interest.
And it is baffling to liberals. So how do they explain it? How do they explain the rift that most certainly exists between middle America and the Democratic National Party. Why is the left elitist and why is middle America so ignorant, they cry. Well, for one, the left can definitely be elitist. When oh when has a Massachusetts intellectual ever thought silently to himself, I know whats best for America, I know that God, guns, and gays dont really matter, in the long run. Come on maybe once or twice. Youre proud of your education and you think youre more in touch with current events, right? Never? Your conscience overrides your sensibilities and your reason? Youre Ralph Nader, so stop reading this and kick the stool. Conversely, how often have you heard the "holier than thou" arguments from the conservative right? Is this a function of "elitism"? But, lets stop and think for a minute, how do we fix it? How do we believe in the right to choose but sell to the people that were not pro-abortion were pro-choice? How do we believe in a gay mans right to marry another man and then say we dont, but we think the states should be able to decide? Its a game of hide the liberalism to appeal to the masses. Again I ask, how do we fix it? Do we leave it up the Queer Eye to expose the people to homosexuality? Do we keep referring to anti-miscegenation laws in hopes that the parallels will become readily apparent?
How do we reconcile these views that are so fundamentally correct and just but at the same time completely at odds with the tenets of Christianity? The answer is not to comprise your convictions to appeal to the masses. The cynical response is to let the GOP run the country even further into the ground, to the point where middle America simply cannot condone selling out our future and our economy for phantom morality and jingoistic and dangerously uncompromising ideology-driven policy. But it still leaves us deep in the hole after four more disastrous years, and doesnt leave us any closer to reconnecting with an increasingly estranged rural population. Personally I don't believe the Democratic party can't connect with middle America given our current platforms and values, but the question remains, how are we gonna gitirdone?
Two informed partisan hacks could, theoretically, continue in a like manner ad infinitum. The formula is simple: respond to a point with a counterpoint; respond to the counterpoint with a sentence beginning with Yeah, but your candidate (Essentially shifting the axis of the debate, and opening up several new channels for the discourse to flow into); respond to this with either a defense of your candidates position, or re-re-position the debate with yet another, Yeah, but your candidate statement; lather, rinse, repeat. Ad nauseum.
That being said, I will now perform a one-man show illuminating the inner-monologue of a Northeast Corridor liberal after the November 2nd elections. Ahem.
Those least likely to be personally affected by terrorism, that is, those least likely to be blown up by an militant Islamofascist on their way to work, have deemed terrorism the most important issue. They themselves have essentially retained the President to keep them safe. Whoa, whoa, hold on their. To keep them safe? No, no. To keep us safe. To confuse their altruism with selfishness would be so typically liberal. Obviously they had the New Yorkers in mind when they voted for George W. Bush. Obviously they were fully aware that they were sentencing their children and grand-children to lives marked by dealing with a debt crisis looming not so far down the road. Obviously they trusted Dubya to change policy in the face of failed policy so as to rescue their health care, and to stop leaving children behind.
The morally upright, the devout, the heartland families voted to retain a President whose convictions were stronger, whose morals were more upright; they voted to retain a President who talks like them. They voted to retain a good old boy, a straight shooter who always said exactly what he meant, never lied to you, and whose first priority was keeping the family values strong (after he kept the family safe from the evil-doers). To say they retained the President to keep the homos down would be an exaggeration and a falsehood. The specifics are not important. The moral fiber is whats important; the Texas drawl, the emotive eyebrow gesticulations, the faith worn ostentatiously on his sleeve. The no apologies faith in Jesus Christ transcends social security and health care and the minimum wage. The Presidents values have convinced Americans not to vote in their own self-interest.
And it is baffling to liberals. So how do they explain it? How do they explain the rift that most certainly exists between middle America and the Democratic National Party. Why is the left elitist and why is middle America so ignorant, they cry. Well, for one, the left can definitely be elitist. When oh when has a Massachusetts intellectual ever thought silently to himself, I know whats best for America, I know that God, guns, and gays dont really matter, in the long run. Come on maybe once or twice. Youre proud of your education and you think youre more in touch with current events, right? Never? Your conscience overrides your sensibilities and your reason? Youre Ralph Nader, so stop reading this and kick the stool. Conversely, how often have you heard the "holier than thou" arguments from the conservative right? Is this a function of "elitism"? But, lets stop and think for a minute, how do we fix it? How do we believe in the right to choose but sell to the people that were not pro-abortion were pro-choice? How do we believe in a gay mans right to marry another man and then say we dont, but we think the states should be able to decide? Its a game of hide the liberalism to appeal to the masses. Again I ask, how do we fix it? Do we leave it up the Queer Eye to expose the people to homosexuality? Do we keep referring to anti-miscegenation laws in hopes that the parallels will become readily apparent?
How do we reconcile these views that are so fundamentally correct and just but at the same time completely at odds with the tenets of Christianity? The answer is not to comprise your convictions to appeal to the masses. The cynical response is to let the GOP run the country even further into the ground, to the point where middle America simply cannot condone selling out our future and our economy for phantom morality and jingoistic and dangerously uncompromising ideology-driven policy. But it still leaves us deep in the hole after four more disastrous years, and doesnt leave us any closer to reconnecting with an increasingly estranged rural population. Personally I don't believe the Democratic party can't connect with middle America given our current platforms and values, but the question remains, how are we gonna gitirdone?
