demiurgent (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
demiurgent) wrote2005-12-10 01:36 pm
demiurgent) wrote2005-12-10 01:36 pm
Jesus, guys. Don't be like *them.*
The same thing happened to me as happened to a lot of Internet aware liberals. I read that President Bush reportedly screamed "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" And I got pissed as Hell, just like every loyal American, liberal or conservative, should. I ranted, in my head, about principles, about the founders, about America.
Here's the thing, though. I read it on an ultra-left-wing blog. And while I have no reason to think Doug Thompson is lying, I have no reason to think he wouldn't blow things out of proportion, either.
There is no independent corroboration. Just "three people he talked to."
Jesus Christ on the Half Shell, gang. This is bush league crap. This is punditry through innuendo. This is the kind of thing we loathe in the most partisan, least even-handed of the Neo-con pundits.
If we're honestly liberals -- if we're honestly for rationality, for humanism, for principle, for the greatest good for the greatest number, we need to be above this kind of petty rumor mongering playing on patriotism and emotionalism over substance. If Bush actually said this and if it can be corroborated, we can have a debate over what this means -- what it means to have a President who swore an Oath to uphold a Constitution he dismisses as meaningless. And all the rest. I can froth with the rest of you.
And guess what -- if it turns out to be true, the Right Wing in this country will be right alongside us, frothing as hard or harder. Don't kid yourselves, love of the Constitution is a bedrock Conservative principle too.
But right now, it's fucking gossip.
This is beneath us. This is Ann Fucking Coulter level crap.
If their side of the aisle won't decry it, that's their lookout. But Liberals? Like me and a lot of you? We should be staring at this, calling shenanigans and getting our fucking brooms.
It's not like the Bush Administration hasn't given us plenty of real things to be outraged over. We don't need this ridiculousness clouding the debate.
Here's the thing, though. I read it on an ultra-left-wing blog. And while I have no reason to think Doug Thompson is lying, I have no reason to think he wouldn't blow things out of proportion, either.
There is no independent corroboration. Just "three people he talked to."
Jesus Christ on the Half Shell, gang. This is bush league crap. This is punditry through innuendo. This is the kind of thing we loathe in the most partisan, least even-handed of the Neo-con pundits.
If we're honestly liberals -- if we're honestly for rationality, for humanism, for principle, for the greatest good for the greatest number, we need to be above this kind of petty rumor mongering playing on patriotism and emotionalism over substance. If Bush actually said this and if it can be corroborated, we can have a debate over what this means -- what it means to have a President who swore an Oath to uphold a Constitution he dismisses as meaningless. And all the rest. I can froth with the rest of you.
And guess what -- if it turns out to be true, the Right Wing in this country will be right alongside us, frothing as hard or harder. Don't kid yourselves, love of the Constitution is a bedrock Conservative principle too.
But right now, it's fucking gossip.
This is beneath us. This is Ann Fucking Coulter level crap.
If their side of the aisle won't decry it, that's their lookout. But Liberals? Like me and a lot of you? We should be staring at this, calling shenanigans and getting our fucking brooms.
It's not like the Bush Administration hasn't given us plenty of real things to be outraged over. We don't need this ridiculousness clouding the debate.
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Capitol Hill Blue is "ultra-left-wing"?
I know America is further right than the UK, but are there not at least some Trots there?
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Not in any way that makes sense. In the UK, I'm distinctly a centrist on many issues, to the left on some, and way to the right on others.
In the US, I'd be a dangerously left wing on most issues. A quick look around the site in question and I do not find any evidence of left wing ness on terms thee and I would understand.
Eric? For examples of left wing, try:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/ (google for the 'politics of weather' stuff by China Miéville, an author I assume you know) or
http://deadmenleft.blogspot.com/
To be truly left wing, you'd have to want to re-write the constitution, to be ultra-left wing, you'd want to rip it up and start again. By the very definitions of the terminology.
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From "Left Wing" or even "Ultra Left Wing" to Communism in one jump? Stunning.
For the record, I don't conflate "Ultra" Left Wing with liberalism or socialism any more than I conflate "Ultra" Right Wing with Libertarianism or Randism. To me, you can have liberals and conservatives and socialists and communists and libertarians and all the rest... and then you have the Ultra-Left and the Ultra-Right, defined as being In Opposition To The Other Side.
Ann Coulter? Ultra-Right. William F. Buckley? Conservative. Two entirely different things.
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For the brits, libertarians ARE liberals, anyway. Terminology and issues are all over the place.
Which is one of the many reasons why vilianizing the "other side" through rumor-mongering is stupid.
Not that I'd be surprised if Bush said that, but yeah.
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This is still beneath we the liberals.
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It should be beneath any sensible person, regardless of leanings. I dislike Bush for his actions, not what other people say about him.
But yeah, come on liberals, I expect better of you! Aren't you supposed to be elitist and intellectual and junk?
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If you're British, then yes, that's the traditional usages of the term (if you take ultra-left and far-left to be synonyms).
I was answering his question about you guys having any trots (ie communists like the two I linked to, note the deliberate small 'c' in communist there, to a political theorist (like me) the word isn't dirty, it's merely a descriptor).
Personally, and apologies for not defining my terms, I prefer the usage of left/right in reform/anti reform terms, ie 'where the phrase came from', in which case your definition (ie conservative (again small c) = right wing).
I've never read that blog until you linked to it, so I can't judge it except on front page, to me, as an involved liberal democrat, it looks a little right wing (in your terminology, that which is usually used, rather than mine, that which is not used anymore).
Left/Right is so useless as a way to describe politics I just wish we could get used to it. Wait, I'm, um, supposed to be writing a peice on that very topic this weekend anyway. Methinks I ought to stop playing Civ. Nah...
Oh yeah; Libertarians are liberals. So was Churchill. Blair isn't liberal by pretty much any definition, despite being, nominally, a socialist. He's from the wrong side of the socialist tradition.
no subject