[quote=briansd1]
Allan, I can discern the differences very well. And I think that you, Allan, are fairly honest in your views.
I was making references to conservative Republicans in general. They are not intellectually honest and only a big-gun, an-eye-for-an-eye approach works with them. To them, trying to debate rationally only indicates that you’re a wuss.
The base of the Republican party is a joke. They are a bunch of ranting, loud, vulgar, ignorant and overweight working-class thugs. They wear oversized outfits not different than the hoodlums of the inner city.
They hardly represent the conservative values of impeccable Christian upbringing and decorum.
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the way they rant and gesture, sound like low-class union organizers, not conservative intellectuals.[/quote]
Brian: I think the criticism cuts both ways. A good example would be Katie Couric’s pronouncement on global warming that the “science is settled”. No, it isn’t and several very prominent scientists have agitated for more debate on the subject.
However, it is now considered nearly heresy to question Al Gore or those pushing the global warming agenda and many stay silent out of fear.
Doesn’t this sort of thing constitute exactly the same sort of close minded thinking you were railing against the Republicans for?
When you declare all debate over on a subject and then blackball and blacklist those that don’t agree with you or think as you do, then you are guilty of the same crimes of repression and oppression that you accuse your opponents of.
The ACORN story is another good example. Fox News was responsible for breaking this story and airing this to the larger public and other news agencies, including CBS and ABC, would not and did not. Charlie Gibson indicated that he was unaware of the story, but felt it was best left to “cable”. It was a real story, regardless of Gibson’s feelings, and ABC and CBS had a journalistic obligation to air it. So, why didn’t they? I think we both know the answer and now we’re hewing perilously close to propaganda (and that accusation fits both sides, too), in that the population at large is only being fed one side of the story or no sides of the story.
The narrative or dialogue is being shaped by two diametrically opposed belief systems, which explains the polarization and Balkanization of America, and why cunning political operatives and operators, such as Karl Rove, Jim Carville, Dick Morris, Paul Begala, etc have been so effective in achieving their goals.
If you wonder why wedge issues are so effective, you need look no further than the (air) time and money spent to push them.
You cannot lambast the Republicans without recognizing that the same tactics are being used by the Democrats as well. The problems the Dems are now experiencing, including their utter bewilderment at the reaction of the American people to their various policies, is simply a function of misreading the meaning of the election and interpreting it as a sweeping mandate, which it never was.
