FALSE ASSUMPTIONS about what a person believes makes you a LIAR, levin. But maybe you’re right- we should have just left Saddam in place and allowed him to continue to butcher hundreds of thousands while he ignored the sanctions against his govermnet.

Maybe you’d be satisfied with that?

Hey, while you’re at it, how ’bout those millions who died because we took on Germany and Japan? There’s LOTS of people who want war crimes pressed against the US for that one. Betting you might be one of them.

Levi still has not addressed the 8 year mote of people wishing for Bush’s assasination, movies and plays of the same, Columbia University (where Victor navasky is a professor) cheering Ahamdinijad and shutting up Right leaning speakers.

But for Levi these things are OK within his two minute hate.

Levi is not worth listening too unless he addresses the 8 year mote; And I thought Dissent was patriotic! Ha!

My vote for Obama was much more a vote against a Republican, see how that works?

Nope, because you admit that you voted for someone who is doing exactly the same thing for which you criticize Republicans.

Again.

Within the Democratic party, the progressive wing is effectively marginalized while the leadership busies itself by copying Republican policies and methods

The only difference is skin color and political affiliation. You support and endorse that which you condemn white Republicans doing when it is a black Obama Party member. You call it “crazy” when a white Republican does it, but support and endorse it when a black Obama Party member does it.

That is not rational. That is pure racism and amorality at work. Your lack of intellect and your failure to put together an intelligent argument has made a fool of you again, Levi.

It must sting immensely to you to be made a fool of so readily by people who you consider your inferiors. But it happens quite often to failures like yourself.

Levi likes to pretend that we didn’t find any chemical weapons, we did.

Levi likes to ignore UN resolutions that we cited.

Levi likes dead brown people over free brown people.

Have you forgotten? Why does this still come up?

I seem to recall that Obama is still using renditions and other Bush-era tactics (and good for him for doing it).

I’m just curioius….

May I ask where this estimate comes from? Because even the democratically-elected government of Iraq comes up with a far smaller number, and those sites which made such claims have been thoroughly Debunked.

I would also like to ask, levi- did you hate obama and the democrats before all this happened, or since? Just curious…

The neoconservatives were handed the reigns after 9-11,

Translation: The Jooos

but that the idea that you can force democracy on a people as alien to the concept as Arabians was utterly ridiculous.

Translation: The sand niggers are just too stupid to understand freedom.

I would love to be sitting here talking about economic policy and tax rates and all that, but

You obviously can’t so you’ll go off onto more dumbassery instead.

I don’t know how to have a cordial political conversation with someone

Clearly.

The left is still pro-choice.

Translation: The left is still pro-infanticide and the more niglets slaughtered, the better.

The left is still for protecting the environment.

Don’t know how, but wasting trillions of dollars, destroying millions of jobs and controlling people ought to do the trick.

The left still favors more regulation.

Again, wasting trillions of dollars, destroying millions of jobs, controlling the people and wiping with the US Constitution ought to do the trick.

Obama passed healthcare, and Democrats have been trying to reform healthcare for years.

See above.

What a disgusting bigot. Liberal hatred and projection has increased ten fold. And yeah, we were so much safer when we had a president too busy screwing interns to give a rat’s ass about terrorism. Brilliant.

You make me sick, Levi. I hope your mother taught you better than to be such a bigot.

I initially thought that invading Iraq would be a good idea, considering how bad a guy Saddam was, and considering the fact that the administration seemed convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that within his borders, Saddam was preparing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to give to terrorists to use against the US and our allies.

Then after awhile, it became readily apparent that none of that was true, and that as bad as Saddam was, Bush’s incompetence in planning for the occupation and resistance was getting many millions of innocent Iraqis killed, maimed, and displaced. Yes, I would rather have Saddam in Iraq than have George Bush turn the United States into a country that gets all the details so embarrassingly wrong that hundreds of thousands of women and children end up dead.

It’s called learning, and it involves incorporating new information about the world into your thinking. You should try it some time.

And you support and endorse every single one of them and Barack Obama.

And that’s where you’re totally wrong. I don’t like Obama and I don’t like the Democrats, but I don’t like them for entirely different reasons than you do. I am a progressive and a liberal, and Obama is neither of those things. Within the Democratic party, the progressive wing is effectively marginalized while the leadership busies itself by copying Republican policies and methods, because the sad truth of the matter is that there is absolutely nothing to gain in American politics by appealing to liberals. The craziness of the Republican party ensures that liberals will continue voting for Democrats just to keep those crazies out of power. My vote for Obama was much more a vote against a Republican, see how that works?

Here’s another example; just because I defend Obama from the occasional hysterical right-wing delusional attack campaign (OBAMA IS BOWING AGAIN OMG!) doesn’t mean I like the guy and endorse all of his actions, it means I think that Republicans are being hysterical little children crying out for attention. In these cases, my defense of Obama was much more a criticism of Republicans.

You lose, brat. Your own words prove that you are a liar and a hypocrite. Your own words prove that what you shriek “compromises American values” is something you wholeheartedly endorse and support when a politician of the correct skin color and political affiliation does it. You make it clear that you have no moral principles or values other than blind, irrational support of the Obama Party, and that you will indeed support what you shriek is “torture” and “imprisonment” when your Obama does it.

Now run, little coward. Run away like you always do when you’ve been called out as the loser and brat that you are.

You’re just too much. I don’t even have to look at the name on most of your posts, I can usually tell that it’s you in the first sentence where you call me a lazy welfare queen and just ignore the rest of your posts.

We on the Right are just returning all the love and support you gave Bush from day One of his presidency/sarc.

The reason no one sees you as serious, you neglect the eight year mote in your eye. Fix that before you complain how the Right is today.

And while you’re blaming conservatives for creating the problem, you’re busy calling us names and thus making our point–while ignoring the point of the post.

Dan, I responded directly to the subject of your post, which as I understand it, explores the question of why the tone of political discussion in American discourse has changed. You feel like liberals are more narrow-minded now than they were. Is that not accurate? What are you trying to say if not precisely that?

I happen to agree that discourse has changed, and I used all those words up there to explain who I think is responsible for it, as well as why and how it changed. You may not agree with what I said and that’s fine, but if you’re just going to lean back in your chair and accuse me of ignoring the point so you can dismiss my arguments without a word, then you’re a coward. I think my explanation of the political environment is vastly superior to yours and I want to know what you think about it, but you just can’t even be bothered. It’s becoming exceedingly rare that I challenge you on something and you actually stand your ground, more often than not you will take this ‘you’re ignoring the point’ approach and the post will fade from the front page. Your responses to myself and to other liberals on your blog actually demonstrate something about the point of your post; I’m trying to have what you would call a ‘heated discussion’ and all you’re doing is trying to call fouls where none exist. How about you man up and just respond to me for once?

Or failing that, how about from now on, when you write a post where all you want is for your fellow conservatives to leave comments that agree with your every word, why don’t you just make that explicit in the headline and I will save myself the time, okay?

But you already said that the left had done so today.

Plenty of Democrats supported that war and Obama has effectively continued most of Bush’s most illegal and amoral policies

Comment by Levi — April 14, 2010 @ 5:20 pm – April 14, 2010

With the full support and endorsement of liberals and “progressives” like yourself.

In short, you have admitted in your own words that the left has “changed” and has made a commitment to policies that you shrieked “compromise American values”.

And you support and endorse every single one of them and Barack Obama.

You lose, brat. Your own words prove that you are a liar and a hypocrite. Your own words prove that what you shriek “compromises American values” is something you wholeheartedly endorse and support when a politician of the correct skin color and political affiliation does it. You make it clear that you have no moral principles or values other than blind, irrational support of the Obama Party, and that you will indeed support what you shriek is “torture” and “imprisonment” when your Obama does it.

Now run, little coward. Run away like you always do when you’ve been called out as the loser and brat that you are.

He would rather support Saddam Hussain and his rape rooms, president Ahmadnijad and his attacks on Israel and the Hugo Chevez and his antiIsreali rhetoric then support a Republican president.

President Obama doesn’t like how he’s treated? Karma, baby karma. He wanted the job, own it. The hatred by the left from 2001 (Inauguration daty 2001 – Inauguration day 2009) has never been acknowledged or apologized for by any leftist.

And while you’re blaming conservatives for creating the problem, you’re busy calling us names and thus making our point–while ignoring the point of the post.

So, why, I wonder, can’t White House officials, Democratic Congressman and Senators and left-of-center opinion-makers show the same respect for the Tea Party movement? To be sure, many do, but they appear drowned out by a narrow-minded multitude.

There is certainly a new tone in right/left political discussion in this country, and to answer your question of why that is, I would say that we need to see how each side has changed over the recent decades. The biggest difference, brought about by 9-11, was the right’s new attitude (it had been percolating for some time) towards foreign policy and human rights. The neoconservatives were handed the reigns after 9-11, and it was decided that the ends justified the means, and that quaint little luxuries like due process and habeas corpus could no longer be afforded. Republicans began insisting that we had to fight these wars, first for our own defense, than as part of a broader nation-building strategy that would would supposedly stabilize the middle east and make us safer.

Unfortunately, everybody spent so much time figuring out how to pitch the war to the American public that they forgot to plan the actual occupation, and as a result, millions of Iraqis’ lives have been uprooted or cut short. The sheer number of casualties proves not only that the Bush administration was incompetent, but that the idea that you can force democracy on a people as alien to the concept as Arabians was utterly ridiculous.

But conservatives refuse to acknowledge this. And really, how could they? Of the two ideologies in this country, the reckless disregard for human rights in pursuit of some illusory perception of safety among the Republican party has undoubtedly been the most significant. Republicans went to the Dark Side, and going to the Dark Side sucks because you basically can never admit that you were wrong, lest you admit to being the bad guy. Who wants to cop to being the bad guy?

I would love to be sitting here talking about economic policy and tax rates and all that, but Republican thought has been fundamentally corrupted by a love for torture and war. I don’t know how to have a cordial political conversation with someone that literally believes that the federal government has the right to kidnap people from anywhere in the world and torture and imprison them for years on end. It’s had a radicalizing effect on the whole of conservatism, it’s bred a lot of very nasty features in the movement like xenophobia and anti-intellectualism, and on top of all that, it’s created this desperation to get back into power, so you can feel like you’re vindicated by the masses in supporting the heinous and unspeakable things that you support.

Now I ask you, has the left changed in such a fashion? Has the progressive movement made a commitment to a new policy that compromises American values? I wouldn’t say so. The left is still pro-choice. The left is still for protecting the environment. The left still favors more regulation. Obama passed healthcare, and Democrats have been trying to reform healthcare for years. That’s called continuity. Obama hasn’t won much else for liberals in his first term, but the ideological underpinnings of liberalism have been completely steady.

It’s time to take a look in the mirror and realize that the world hasn’t changed, you have. If you find that it’s no longer possible to have sober, rational discussions with liberals, it’s because you’ve stopped being sober and rational, and that is directly attributable to the line in the sand that you crossed after 9-11. The conservative reaction to the attacks is definitely understandable and I’m sympathetic to the desire to seek revenge against the people and the regions that inspired the attack, but more than anything this was a test of the ruling party at the time, and the ruling party failed. Republican leadership sold its base and the world a bill of good that has blown up in everyone’s faces and unless you’ve got plenty of intellectual honesty and a healthy amount of bravery, now there is nothing for conservatism to do but double down and advocate for more war, more torture, because to do anything else would be a tacit admission that you were wrong.

I think it’s Bill Maher that tells a joke about how America had been pretty lucky through the years by seeming to get just the right President at just the right time; Lincoln during the Civil War, Roosevelt during WWII, JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. But it couldn’t last forever, and not only did George Bush end up instituting a bunch of terrible policies, he turned the conservative movement in this country into a group of amoral toddlers that have nothing better to do than wonder why nobody takes them seriously anymore. It’s a Republican double-failure at another of these moments of great crisis.

“Racist” means simply that the accuser has no credible argument.
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Off-topic but I seem to remember years of leftist agitprop stating that Bush wanted to read our emails, listen to our phone calls, snoop at the library, peek under our beds… seems like The One wants to do just that:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002423-38.html