[Psudo]

JJ wrote:

Psudo wrote:

The unstated, implied end of Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" quote is "to destroy what I love." That is what Limbaugh believes Obama seeks. Can anyone refuse to hope that what they love endures?

But Psudo, that also implies that Limbaugh sees Obama as a guy who is motivated by a desire to destroy all that is good in America. I think that's more of what people objected to.

It's pretty identical to what left-wing commentators said about Bush. So why is Limbaugh's "I hope he fails." worse than their vicious commentary, calling for war crimes tribunals and such? I didn't mean to imply Limbaugh was a saint, but that he's not doing anything that isn't standard modern punditry.

[commanderkai]

And so we come down to the real question. What has the Tea Party movement, right wing commentators, or Republican politicians have done during the Obama presidency that has not been done by those on the political left during the Bush years? I've asked this questions a few times, but so far, nobody has provided a satisfactory answer.

[JJ]

There is no answer, because obviously you're right.
But that's still a depressing commentary on the state of modern politics.

[commanderkai]

JJ wrote:

There is no answer, because obviously you're right.
But that's still a depressing commentary on the state of modern politics.

I don't deny that. I'm certainly not happy with it, but I consider this "blowback" by conservatives against liberals after the treatment Bush specifically, but Republicans in general received during the 2000-2008 years. There were even hints during the last major US election to label McCain as some foaming at the mouth conservative, which, to me, is hilarious since he's the poster boy for being a R.I.N.O.

I think you are right though, that it's the "Big Tent" concept, that causes this massive partisanship, however, the Democrats have as big of a tent, and it's filled with just as many crazies. How will they get rid of the crazies? A big mousetrap maybe, I dunno.

[Psudo]

The 2000s were blowback for Republican's bashing of Clinton in the '90s, which was blowback for Democrats treatment of Reagan in the '80s, back and back. It's turning into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

The cycle can be broken, I think, if both sides give the other the right to hold crazy opinions. If some partial set of their followers are nuts, that doesn't make the ideology wrong. Let them think shallow thoughts. No one's an expert at everything, nor should they be expected to be.

But one side or the other always has to see bad reasoning and think it proves evil or discredits the ideology.

[Kjorteo]

The real tragedy here is that legitimate debate and discussion are a casualty to extremely polarized buzzword slinging. The health care summit (which I actually watched all seven hours of in its entirety, not just the 2-minute exerts of speeches people liked like was posted near the beginning of this thread) way too frequently lost any sort of attempt to shed light on anything when all the pointless jingoism started. When speaker after speaker on the Republican side tried to boil the entire issue down into directly stating, on several occasions, that the main philosophical difference between the parties was "whether you trust big government or the people to make decisions." No, until I actually see a Democrat get up there and say "this bill is designed to deliberately take power away from people and gives it to the government because we believe the latter is better at making decisions" (possibly pausing, then adding "mwa ha ha,") I will continue to believe that that is an incredibly meaningless thing to say that just scores some quick cheap points for you without actually accomplishing anything of substance, sort of like the obligatory "Can you hear me, (name of city you're in)?" from a band in a concert.

Unfortunately, the biggest tragedy of all is that the public falls for this stuff time and time again. There a semi-recent poll that discovered that whether people support or oppose repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell depends on how you phrase the question, and it's only gone downhill from there. That's why the pro-life/pro-choice debate is phrased that way instead of phrasing it as whether one is for or against abortion--because is there anyone out there who would stand up and say the oppose things like life or choice? That's probably also why it's at such a complete impasse. I'm sure there are other examples out there, but the biggest example of all is in the way people have universally bought into the jingoism to the point where it drowns out even debate among individuals at this level. (Someone will respond to this post angrily going after my first paragraph because they do believe the Democrats are out to take power away from people and give it to Big Government. And they'll probably add a at the end of their post because the types who do that are usually about that mature.)

My impression of the summit was that Obama was honestly trying to get people from both sides to knock off the campaign speech crap and actually talk substance, but what he wanted them to do wasn't necessarily what actually ended up happening.

[commanderkai]

Psudo wrote:

The 2000s were blowback for Republican's bashing of Clinton in the '90s, which was blowback for Democrats treatment of Reagan in the '80s, back and back. It's turning into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Hey, I'm only 20, I wasn't aware during the Clinton years

Quote:

My impression of the summit was that Obama was honestly trying to get people from both sides to knock off the campaign speech crap and actually talk substance, but what he wanted them to do wasn't necessarily what actually ended up happening.

And from my interpretation of the summit, I see something totally different. However, I also hold a much more skeptical view on President Obama. I see the same posturing you accuse the Republicans of committing by the Democrats, so on and so forth. I do see the Republicans playing buzzwords, and I readily admit this, however, I do not see the Democrats truly attempting to foster bipartisanship, but rather are also fueling the partisan divides.

[KyleEverett]

Its because people don't want to listen anymore. They want soundbites and catchy slogans. It's the TL;DR craze that's spreading because of cable news and the internet. "If you can't tell me what you stand for in 3 sentences, I don't care anymore."

[Kjorteo]

The level of demonization between the parties probably also has something to do with it. The Republicans have to define themselves as the party that literally just says no to absolutely everything Obama says or does--any cooperation at all would be seen as supporting what Jon Stewart once referred to as the "socialist Muslim Kenyocracy" and lead to their getting picked off in the primaries by the Tea Partiers.

Not that the left is free of its share of that with the excessively rabid progressives and such, but A) the crazies on the right seem to be a bit louder right now, and B) it's kind of hard for me to personally admit to the equivalency since I like the progressives.

[ShepherdsDog]

'Progressives' tend to self label themselves and done so incorrectly. I prefer to see the bar raised for all concerned rather than levelled for the lowest common denominators in a society, as they would have it. If anything their policies and ideals would have us functioning like ant colonies, rather than indiviuals.

[Psudo]

Kjorteo wrote:

The real tragedy here is that legitimate debate and discussion are a casualty to extremely polarized buzzword slinging. The health care summit (which I actually watched all seven hours of in its entirety, not just the 2-minute exerts of speeches people liked like was posted near the beginning of this thread) way too frequently lost any sort of attempt to shed light on anything when all the pointless jingoism started.

Is it any wonder that the Constitutional Convention was held in strict secrecy? It completely thwarts politicians' ability to grandstand in front of their constituencies. You put someone on TV and most feel compelled to perform. Especially egotists like your average politician.

Kjorteo wrote:

My impression of the summit was that Obama was honestly trying to get people from both sides to knock off the campaign speech crap and actually talk substance, but what he wanted them to do wasn't necessarily what actually ended up happening.

I admit I didn't see the whole thing, but my impression is that Obama wanted to broadcast that appearance to a national audience; if he'd really wanted by-the-issues debate, it would have been held without live broadcast.

commanderkai wrote:

Hey, I'm only 20, I wasn't aware during the Clinton years

I'm only 28, and I have some memories of the Reagan administration. But, I admit, that's not typical.

Kjorteo wrote:

The Republicans have to define themselves as the party that literally just says no to absolutely everything Obama says or does

I have to concede this point. Ann Coulter just wrote an article championing as an ideal the Republican reputation as "The Party of No". (This time I invoke Ann Coulter as an example of a Tea Party/conservative view, not one with any connection to my own.)

Kjorteo wrote:

the crazies on the right seem to be a bit louder right now

According to the right-wing theory of a conservative silent majority, the silent majority has finally spoken up as the Tea Party. That means these people are not necessary informed on political issues, but they're sufficiently sick and tired of being ignored and suffering for it that they've been pushed to action on the information they already have. That's why Republicans and conservatives give them a portion of respect even while admitting they're not terribly informed or politically sophisticated; their reaction is still proof of their mistreatment by Washington (both Democrat and Republican). Their position is genuine, and deserves a measure of respect for it.

[Kento]

I think saying the right is exhibiting behavior that is common to the left is, while in some ways valid, in some ways is also missing the point.

During the Bush administration, you would see some people on the left say "Bush is a terrorist!" Today, you see some people on the right say "Obama is a terrorist!" But during the Bush administration, you'd hear right-wing media personalities make fun of protests, saying how ineffective and masturbatory they were, and saying "America, love it or leave it!" Of course you hear some similar sentiment on the left, just as during the Bush administration you'd hear right-wingers say "go ahead, move to Canada, we won't miss you!" you'll hear some on the left say "go ahead, secede, we won't miss you!"

But what the smarter left-wing critics are getting at today is that the right is being hypocritical. Protesting was unpatriotic and somehow kind of sissy, while today it's courageous. There are unintelligent and disingenuous critics on the left who have adopted the attitude the right had, but a lot of critics are just saying the right is being inconsistent, and there's frustration that they won't be subject to the same criticism that the left got if the left is to remain ideologically consistent.

I think there is hypocrisy on the left, while I do think the right is--- honestly, kind of insane right now, there are those on the left who say that the right is calling for violence and is dangerous, forgetting things what some people on the left, a few of whom actually had a platform, did during the Bush administration. (The sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids You Know had a sketch that was more or less just an instruction guide to assassinating President Bush.) That being said, I don't think the right is giving anywhere near as much credit as is due to those on the left who criticized violence and calls for violence. Even Keith Olbermann, who is always trying to make issues out of tiny things Republicans say that really have to be interpreted very, very oddly to be considered even a tiny bit of a problem or offensive, denounced the militant left whenever the issue came up. (I don't really watch TV, and haven't been in the United States since 2008, so I don't know if what I saw was representative, or if it could be said to be a token criticism of the left, or what.)

I can see hypocrisy on both sides. It just seems, for this specific issue, the major figures on the right are being a lot more hypocritical in a lot more important ways than those on the left.

[commanderkai]

Kento wrote:

But what the smarter left-wing critics are getting at today is that the right is being hypocritical. Protesting was unpatriotic and somehow kind of sissy, while today it's courageous. There are unintelligent and disingenuous critics on the left who have adopted the attitude the right had, but a lot of critics are just saying the right is being inconsistent, and there's frustration that they won't be subject to the same criticism that the left got if the left is to remain ideologically consistent.

Sorry, no. The hypocrisy is shared on both sides equally. During the Bush years, Democrats and left-wing pundits stated that "dissent was the highest form of patriotism" and currently, left wing pundits like Olbermann, Maddow, and who knows who else I'm missing tarnishes the Tea Party movement in the same way the right-wing was attacking protest movements during the Bush years.

Now, yes, both sides will cheer on their protesters, and tarnish the protesters opposing their political views, but that being said, attempts to make these Tea Party protests as ones drenched in hatred is dishonest, because the same sort of signs and behavior was seen during the Bush years.

[JJ]

There was a significant anti-American element to some of the anti-Bush / anti-war protestors; people who though the US government was an illegitimate bloodthirsty war machine motivated only by killing and oppression (and the profits to be gained from killing and oppression).

But the thing is, there is also a significant anti-American element to much of the right-wing protests of today, namely among those who believe the US government is an illegitimate entity controlled by traitors and zionists and satanists and the Bilderberg group and other evil people plotting to round up and exterminate huge chunks of the citizenry.

It's interesting how the 9-11 Truth movement was once seen as a leftist thing, but it's now sort of morphing into a right-wing thing, as the ideology of Washington changes. The only consistent theme is hating government and hating your country. Just about any pseudo-ideological rhetoric can be dreamed up to justify it in either direction.

[Kento]

I have been outside of the United States, and my exposure to the punditry has been through selected clips, I'm in no position to say what's happening on that front.

I do know they have been very critical of the anger and the hatred and the calls to violence, which is--- I really don't know if Maddow or Olbermann specifically were never critical in the Bush era protests, but it wouldn't surprise me, and surely there are people who are hypocritical on that front. My focus though, and perhaps it isn't as important, but I really do perceive a difference in the idea of protests being treasonous. I know Olbermann (who I don't care for, but he has influence and a following) uses the word treason, but my feeling from that is there is an extent he only uses it to point out hypocrisy. There may be an extent though that he doesn't, some of his worse aspects that I'm aware of make me think he is being hypocritical. But I really feel, overall, it's different. Yes, people on the left completely hate the protesters on the right just as the right had hated the left wing protests. Both protests had conspiracy theorists and ill-informed people and calls for violence and whatever else, and were criticized justifiably for that. But--- while of course there's going to be high profile hypocrites on both sides, overall--- at least, the kinds of places I go for political discussion, when the tea party movement is being criticized, it's because of their policy preferences, the grassroots vs astroturf thing (there's some hypocrisy to be found here, but there's some valid stuff too), and the extremists (tons of hypocrisy here), but any time I hear about treason or lack of patriotism, it's always in regards to the hypocrisy of the protesters, I've not talked to any people on the left who feels it's treasonous quite the same way I did on those on the right during the Bush administration. "Love it or leave it" is a little more complicated, there are some people on the left who just hate the south.

Anyway, we're individuals, and hypocrisy is to be loathed on both sides! It's worth looking at though, seeing the nature of pundits and the types of people who go to protests, the lack of conviction, the ability to be lead, the kinds of messages that appeal...