the difference between the left and the right
catch22
Posts: 1,081
i was discussing this this morning. the biggest threat to obama is his own party.
conservatives on the right are scared shitless of obama. they fear if he's elected, we'll all be nuked, never respond, taxes will approach 100%, lazy minorities will get health care and have one less reason to work, and babies will be murdered at twice the rate.
so what do they do? the logical thing. they say obama is terrible for this country and they're going to vote for mccain.
liberals on the left are tired of war and the rich-favoring tax policies of the last 8 years and corporate abuse and favoritism and so on and so forth.
so what do they do? they don't lambast mccain for being more of the same. instead they pick the candidate closer to their views and destroy him for not being EXACTLY like their views. then, in the end, either they won't vote, because they just liked feeling counter-culture, or they'll vote for the socialist party or green party or whatever hip leftist party they dig, or quietly see the light, tuck their tail between their legs and vote for obama after they've already destroyed his prosects by forcing him to fight his own party as much as the other.
and this is what i don't get about the left. at least the right lives in a pragmatic reality and will pick the better candidate, accept that he isn't perfect, and try to make sure he gets in. shit, 4 years ago you all would have been creaming your shorts if obama was running. now all of a sudden he's some sort of neocon puppet because his platform is different from ralph nader's? the left doesn't want intelligent candidates with diverse and nuanced views any more than the southern baptist convention does. they want a hard-line left-winger who is exactly like them on every issue. 95% agreement wouldn't be good enough for these people, they'd spend months destroying such a candidate because of that 5% of disagreement.
conservatives on the right are scared shitless of obama. they fear if he's elected, we'll all be nuked, never respond, taxes will approach 100%, lazy minorities will get health care and have one less reason to work, and babies will be murdered at twice the rate.
so what do they do? the logical thing. they say obama is terrible for this country and they're going to vote for mccain.
liberals on the left are tired of war and the rich-favoring tax policies of the last 8 years and corporate abuse and favoritism and so on and so forth.
so what do they do? they don't lambast mccain for being more of the same. instead they pick the candidate closer to their views and destroy him for not being EXACTLY like their views. then, in the end, either they won't vote, because they just liked feeling counter-culture, or they'll vote for the socialist party or green party or whatever hip leftist party they dig, or quietly see the light, tuck their tail between their legs and vote for obama after they've already destroyed his prosects by forcing him to fight his own party as much as the other.
and this is what i don't get about the left. at least the right lives in a pragmatic reality and will pick the better candidate, accept that he isn't perfect, and try to make sure he gets in. shit, 4 years ago you all would have been creaming your shorts if obama was running. now all of a sudden he's some sort of neocon puppet because his platform is different from ralph nader's? the left doesn't want intelligent candidates with diverse and nuanced views any more than the southern baptist convention does. they want a hard-line left-winger who is exactly like them on every issue. 95% agreement wouldn't be good enough for these people, they'd spend months destroying such a candidate because of that 5% of disagreement.
and like that... he's gone.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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I have many issues with his foreign policy, and that doesn't constitute as 5% of all his policies for me.
not that I don't support him because I'm hoping his foreign policy will get better, and I guess you can say I have another agenda.
I really like your entire post.
Who do you mean "they"? All I've been hearing from liberal democratic politicians is how McCain is more of the same.
i believe the reason for that is that these people don't actually see a whole whack of difference between either candidate ...
if the war is a top priority for you - there is no evidence to support that either candidate will ultimately do anything differently ... the hawkish members of the clinton administration (albright, etc) are once again part of the inner foreign policy circle - the same people that brought about years of crippling sanctions on saddam and a bombing campaign is NOT going to end this tragedy known as the iraqi occupation ...
the political system in the US has been compromised and is essentially a large corporation who acts on behalf of its supporting interests - neither mccain nor obama show any inclination of changing that based purely on their speeches and appointments ...
liberals basically. look around here. most of the criticism of obama is not coming from the right, it's coming from the left. people still bitter that hillary lost or that the dems didn't pick nader to run. yeah, these people when confronted will throw in a token "mccain is more of the same" but then go right back to tearing obama a new one for whatever quibble they can find.
this is why republicans have dominated politics the last 10-15-maybe 20 years. they will put aside their differences to unite behind their best people. the democrats and liberals spend more time squabbling with each other and tearing down their own than they do fighting true conservatives.
i made it up. it was a rhetorical device, an illustrative aid, if you will. i do need to go back and see what in god's name makes you think mccain would be better though. that still blows my mind.
i'm not so sure that's the case. i don't think the dems really pander to the extreme left that much. otherwise, there would be none of this going on. obama's a pretty solid centrist i think. so what happens? the right destroys him for being a godless lefty and the left destroys him for being a right-winger in disguise. it happened to gore too.
those on the right may grumble that mccain isn't quite emphatic enough on his moral stances, but they grumble to each other quietly. they don't protest their own conventions and try to rip him down from within.
says the canadian.
i used these same arguments in 2000 when it was bush vs gore. you know what? they're bullshit arguments. if you think gore's election would not have vastly changed america's response to 9/11, you are not living in reality. what this is is the same tired rhetoric from hipster leftists who want to talk about sticking it to the man in between bong rips and concert tickets paid for by their parents or their job as professional protesters. we're in the same position now. 2 new candidates coming off a 2-term president. those on the left still whining about how they're both the same and they wish nader or kucinich could get in and really change things (nevermind that most of what they want changed is congress's territory).
neocons talk about how scared they are that we'll be attacked if obama gets elected. i'm a helluva lot more worried about what would happen if a bomb does go off on mccain's watch. who do you want in control of america then? because i can assure you, their responses would be as different as bush's was from what gore's would have been.
ok, that makes sense. I heard a statistic today that something like 60% of the pro democratic voters are women. I wonder if that has something to do with it? Some women might vote not so much for issues but how a candidate makes them "feel". I'm totally generalizing the "woman" thing there (because I am a woman). But to me, it's an interesting thought.
I'm an Obama supporter. I remember at one point early in the primary that I was actually saying "if Hillary wins, I won't vote for her in the general election". WTF? I know better than that. I was just so wrapped up in the emotions of the moment that I wasn't even thinking aobut the overall implications of a McCain win. About the mid-point I put my emotions aside and realized I would have to fall in line with whoever the Dem was that won regardless.
Basically, Obama and Clinton have the exact same agenda. Except for the fact that Obama is the antichrist.
there may be something to that. i get the feeling there is a lot of emotion invested on this side. and it does feel like a lot of it reminds me of my female friends, who will spend most of their lunches with a given friend cutting up the friend who isn't there before having lunch with that person and cutting up the friend they just ate with
i know. you were talking about israel as i recall. i still find it hard to believe. i'll look into it when i get back from picking up the verve's new cd
amen... what an awesome post
Maybe it's because these liberals you speak of are not willing to forgo their beliefs simply to get the lesser of two evils elected. I certainly would not vote for a candidate that I disagree with simply because I disagree with the other candidate more.
i hope you stick around this board for a while... i like your style
i was one of those liberals. i campaigned for nader in 2000. i saw the people making these arguments. hell i used the "im not voting lesser of two evils" argument myself! that's not what this is about. if ralph nader was running for the dems, these same people backing him now would be ripping him apart for his stock portfolio or the fact that the dems get money from companies. it's not about issues as much as it is about posturing and bucking the status quo. these folks fancy themselves 60s style hippies in the new millenium, and it's just sad.
but the disagreement is my point. these people will not accept disagreement. unless the candidate has a platform cribbed from che guevera, they will not be happy. they could diagree 100% with mccain, agree with obama 75%, and will still vote for nader (who they, when they really think about it, only agree 75% with too) just because they act like they could NEVER support the election of someone who disagrees with them on that 25%. in doing so, they fuck this country over by refusing to elect someone who would truly do the country some good because they've taken a more nuanced view of their pet issue.
but maybe that's the point. maybe they like having dubya and mccain in office for the same reason terrorists love us being iraq. makes it easy to whine and complain and blame the bad guys without having to have any responsibility for what's happening.
damn.
that's a gooder.
OK, here is my spin, for now.....
I started here thinking I was a Republican. I loved The President, (I still support him but don't think of him as if I know everything about him----I respect him but also understand that he is human and there are things I don't know about others that if found true, I may change my views), and was all for this war. Then after people here opened my mind to their views, I took them in thought about it, then realized that some of the things said here, made a whole lot of sense to me.
So, I think I am neither. Is it possible to start petitioning to either party that we want a candidate, a president who is neither one nor the other but has a combination of thoughts that will promise the US better chances of personal happiness, success, and safety as well as freedom within reasonable boundaries.
Together we will float like angels.........
In the moment that you left the room, the album started skipping, goodbye to beauty shared with the ones that you love.........
I guess it all comes down to personal priorities. One person might feel that support a candidate who has no chance of being elected more important than compromising and voting for the "lesser of the two evils", but someone else might feel that voting for the lesser of the two evils is more important than just sitting by and "allowing" the worse of the two evils to get elected.
I dunno... I think Obama is an okay candidate - nothing great, but a big improvement over Bush and even McCain. When I think of supreme court justices or foreign policy, having McCain there frightens me a bit.
Of course this is the first presidential election that I am living in a state (NY) that no matter who I vote for, the state is going to Obama anyway. At least when I lived in PA, it sort of felt that my vote counted.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
i vote in ohio. i still feel guilty for campaigning hard for nader in 2000
i will concede that if gore was president there wouldn't be iraq (nor 9/11 for that matter) ... but it does beg the question why the democrats would allow the election to be stolen from them twice ...
and of these 8 years - we can blame so much on bush but the dems have been equally complicit in approving many things that are now seen as being detrimental to the states ...
you're joking right? why would the dems allow an election to be stolen? why would a woman allow herself to be raped? come on! (in Gob voice
why did they lose? for the reasons i've listed here. gore blew that election. a weak opposition candidate and he's riding on the success of a popular 2-term ticket. what went wrong? ralph nader and the left tore him apart. his campaign was a mess from day one because he was as busy fighting off the left as he was the right. ditto for kerry. how do you think he got the flip-flopper tag? because he had to show the country he could do a better job managing defense than bush had, and when he tried, his own party eviscrated him for being pro-war (which is nonsense, but it's typical of the histrionics of the left). thus he was constantly trying to explain himself and getting tied up and voila... you've got an unelectable flip-flopper who can't beat the weakest incumbent president ever.
yes, there were voting irregularities and they need to be explored. but when it comes down to it, both gore and kerry lost because they were being attacked on both sides. this does not happen on the right. or at least not recently. so all bush had to do was say nothing. he wasn't going to lose supporters to kerry and certainly wasn't going to gain any. he just managed to mobilize his people behind him, while the left was busy ripping their candidates apart and ensuring that nobody mobilized in support of kerry or gore.
you're right though, the dems have been pretty hopeless and foundering these past few years. but can you blame them? how confusing must it be to be a dem right now? you're damned no matter what you do, and you cannot win even with your own supporters. you try to take some steps towards a compromise solution and your own supporters destroy your for selling out or compromising too much. you take a hard line that nobody in america will accept and your supporters tear you apart for not getting anything done. it's lose-lose for them. it's no wonder they've thrown in the towel.
i really like to think of my experiences as helpful in understand the sociology of this.
did you campaign for nader in 2000? do you have these experiences to compare to what you see happening now? what were you, 12 during that election? i know you want to think you're part of something special and unique right now, but that's not the case. this is the exact same rhetoric and nonsense that i was responsible for promoting 8 years ago.
perhaps he does....me, i just think it's a pretty damn good assumption.
seriously, i do *get* voting your conscience, the candidate you most believe in, support, who you MOST want to see as president. i do, i really do. however, i also believe there are many who simply like to follow the other crowd....making a 'statement'..or whatever.....with no real grasp of the consequences. then again, i also don't view obama as the lesser of two evils, not even close...so that might skew my perspective somewhat. the initial premise for this thread is all pretty damn good assumptions.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
I see where you are coming from and I definitely agree. The right/Republicans are by far more organized and will support their candidate even if they don't necessarily agree with him on all fronts. Let's face it though the Democratic party has been in trouble for years now.
undoubtedly. it seemed the republicans were on the verge of a split for a moment there, but it just kind of dissipated in the hillary-obama drama. the problems with the democrats run deep. the left in general is just too reactionary to be stable and organize and build strong alliances.
now, that's some good shit, right there.
and where ARE those hippies, anyway? they seem to be conspicuously absent from this thread, at least what i've read of it. perhaps they're off leafleting for nader at the DNC.
"Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore
"i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
~ed, 8/7
and the Right is all like "Eh Eh Eh Eh Eh Eh Eh."
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