I, on the other hand, have heard from a fairly large number of conservatives - Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, Newt Gingrich, and others - that many types of speech are treasonous and should be punished in some manner, often by imprisonment or death. Charming company you keep, no? But again, the overriding feeling isn’t contempt, anger, or hatred, but rater: pity. If you really do live in a world in which you are a brave bastion of freedom struggling against the tide of The Left and The Left’s attempts to destroy all that is good in the world, then…well, you’re already punishing yourself enough.

And good for you, Huan, for telling us the truth.

They are beneath even contempt. They are damned. I suspect more than a few of them know that and wish to take the rest of us with them.

Today a blogger asked how a Muslim fanatic could send her own son off to murder-suicide women and children. I say ask the Left in this country. They know.

Suggest you take a look any day at DailyKos, DU, or Zombie’s site to see the photos of “protests” to see how accurate Neo’s description of the “left” is.

Read Nick Cohen’s “What’s Left?”

Certainly not “synonymous” but in this case very representative. Surely you do enough reading on your computer monitor to understand that donkeykong’s p.o.v. on Viet Nam, and his dismissive, sarcastic tone nicely encapsulates the prevailing leftist attitude.

I have long regretted the lack of a single word to capture this increasingly common combination (found also on the right, and among fundamentalists of every stripe). The portmanteau ignorrogance doesn’t quite capture it, but it’s the best I can come up with.

hmmmm and neo cons cant do this?

Hey, I got a bright idea. Here’s a message that I want to send to conned and justa. They might recognize some of their buddies here.

Link
Ymar | Homepage | 01.29.07 - 11:08 pm | #

Please don’t feed the trolls.
neo-neocon | Homepage | 01.29.07 - 11:14 pm | #

But facts will never matter to a dunce like you.

Victory is whatever pisses the Left off most and makes Neo happy.
Ymar | Homepage | 01.25.07 - 9:53 pm | #

You are without a doubt the densest of our trolls.
stumbley | 01.25.07 - 11:02 pm | #

maybe you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeah, I think that’s it.
Sally | 01.26.07 - 10:11 am | #

Well, anon, now that you,ve admitted that you’re a LIAR, it makes no difference. Anything you say is just simply dismissed as another lie.
Lee | 01.26.07 - 3:58 pm | #

How dare he leave me out, I am the original pyramid builder of skulls, people. Original.

Keep fighting the good fight Stumb, but one reason people don’t duel with chickens is that there is no honor in dueling an animal that doesn’t even understand the concept.
Ymar | Homepage | 01.25.07 - 11:20 am | #

You won’t be a lean, mean trigger pullin’ machine but you could be part of the logistical and administrative tail that support the sharp end. It would help if your clearance is either up to date or easy to do.

There are opportunities beyond the 101st Fighting Keyboardists.
Senescent Wasp | 01.25.07 - 11:51 am | #

I wouldn’t urinate on you if your caught fire.
Senescent Wasp | 01.25.07 - 6:45 pm | #

…the last one was addressed to me!

Yup you really do have some mature supporters with subtle and well sourced arguments.

Now scream TROLL! and press delete because you sure as hell are no use at debate.
stumbley | 01.25.07 - 9:45 pm | #

The left is truly composed of, “Mindless, booger eating, bed wetters.”

I know your comment will soon vanish but I coudln’t pass up the opportunity to let you know that everytime you come up online, someone, somewhere is watching. It’s a trivial excercise much like that used in instant messaging, but we like it.

or is it simply people who disagree with you? They may be right, they may be wrong but a quick flick through your postings on here show you cannot deal with those who have the temerity to disagree.

you stick to your fantasies of surveilling the world

Money and air support, neo. The North could not invade the South with their tanks, regardless of how many they had, so long as America did a No Fly Zone (Iraq) in Vietnam.

Thanks for reposting my link, Conned. It is a very very good answer, no need for any comment from me concerning that.

Btw, mature content in that video.

Not me, sorry. And WR really is dense. I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em. Admittedly, I’ve succumbed to the “juvenile” taunts of the likes of you, for instance, but only when prompted by similar comments. If you could, for once, actually engage in a civil discussion without resorting to slinging epithets like “racist” around, maybe we’d be kinder to you.

“That’s not only a taunt directed at Huan, but at all those very threatening (and deluded, according to Leftist thinking) Vietnam “revisionist” historians–myself, of course, included”.

If revising history is indeed viewed as threatening - personally I see it as the last scourge of the scoundrel - it is from it’s use to justify or give meaning to current events whose realities Americans suffer through each day, such as the tragedy that is the Iraq war. Or simply to obscure the realities of U.S crimes in Indochina of which the ‘left’ insists as the primary narrative - something about human rights and all that stuff.
And any history about the Vietnam war that ignores the 20 years of successive U.S presidents propping up South Vietnam - previous the fall of Saigon - deserves a certain amount of scorn. As it does when the Vietnamese populace’s quite observable views abo

While not exactly equivalent, lots of Americans sent their sons to fly bomber missions in Germany with incredibly high casualty rates. Their bombs certainly weren’t discriminating between men and women or children. So, are you arguing that all of the American men and women who sent their sons to very probable deaths in order to drop bombs on women and children were Lefties? I think the Left would be happy to claim credit for the entire Greatest Generation. Thanks!

That’s a pretty big assertion there! I’m curious - could you define what you consider to be “the Left” (registered Democrats? people who voted for Democratic candidates in the last election? the readership of Indymedia?), and then could you please demonstrate how the prevailing atitude among these people is sarcastic and dismissive? Could you also explain why the Right never uses sarcasm? Could you also explain what they’re dismissing, and why dismissing things is bad?

Thanks!

I mean, they’re both assertions about personal experience that’s supposed to be relevant to the discussion, but there’s no proof given in either case. You asked for the name of the brother; has anyone thought to ask for Huan’s address and phone number and etc in Vietnam?

I mean, consistency folks! Don’t want to look like you apply arbitrary standards to information that disagrees with your assumptions about the world, do you? I didn’t think so!

Actually, The Left hates The Neocon because of that time The Neocon borrowed The Left’s copy of “Talladega Nights” and never returned it, that jerk.

Or, it could have something to do with the way Neocons are always proposing and seeking to implement policies that cause more harm than they ever could good, either way.

Glad you’re back. Less glad you waste keystrokes sniffing out their holes. They aren’t even mosquitos, just exceptionally silly arrangements of electrons or whatever they’re called on our screens.

The scientific illiteracy of us Americans is scandalous; I am living proof.

So wait, what the hell are we even talking about here? Either “the Left” is a big enough force to actually affect change, or it’s nothing - a tiny minority of idiots who read Indymedia and can’t get their shit together and who will never be taken seriously because they look like freaks and love street-theater self-congratulation. But if it’s the latter, why do you spend so much time talking about them and no, say, the Right (who, let’s say is, in this case, composed of abortion clinic terrorists and gay nightclub bombers and KKK members)?

Either you’re using The Left for shorthand to describe “anyone who disagrees with me,” or you’re using it to describe a tiny group of people with no real influence or power. What’s up with the obsession?

Well, I suppose I should be grateful someone is writing to expose the shamefulness of our withdrawal from Vietnam under a Republican president.

Actually, I’ve read quite a few commenters who write things like “all the soldiers I know

However many you are, and whoever you are, you all sound hysterical, and more than slightly incoherent.

Try addressing some of the actual issues Neo raises, instead of lashing out hither an yon, okay?

The Iraq study (BIPARTISAN) group report prepared not only by dems & reps, military experts/other experts and consultations with Iraqis (which it lists) is hardly a Vietnam plan of abandonment.

There will only be a bipartisan solution or no solution though (IMO).

If the Neo-cons are proposing bad policies, tell us what these policies are, and why they’re bad. It’s hard to believe, by the way, that they’d come up with anything much worse than what the Left has wrought over the decades—but tell us. Argue the point. Don’t just go on and on about how criticizing the Left is just being mean.

‘Neocons actually have a competing theory about what to do about the third world, and it runs highly counter to that of the Left: it actually involves freedom, liberty, and protection of their rights within a democracy.’

Yes, that must be it… the Left (and the liberals, and the center, and most of the Right) is rebelling against Neoconservativism not because it has made the world a more dangerous place for America, not because it gives democracy a bad name without delivering it, not because it’s been a huge waste of blood and treasure to no definite purpose, not because it has emboldened our enemies by showing the limits of our power, not because its leaders are incompetent and duplicitous at best, in short, not because it has been a failure in every way, but because they hate freedom and democracy. But of course!

And, of course, it’s the Left that wants to tell everyone what to do, not the Neocons who favor a council of Wise Americans to dictate in advance what every ‘democracy’ should decide. Sorry, Neo, but hegemony doesn’t work that way. Pine all you like for American occupation of Vietnam, while Johnson and Nixon systematically devastated the country, cancelled all free elections for fear Ho Chi Minh would win, covered it in chemical weapons, slaughtered millions of Vietnamese, blocked all attempts at land reform, stifled all political dissent with imprisonment and assassination, and in doing so undermined all non-Communist factors among the North Vietnamese. Is that what democracy looks like?

If you want to know what neoconservativism - and yes, ‘empire’ - mean, just go back and read the New Republic from the 30s and 40s, which asked rhetorically “What’s the difference between the imperialism of democratic countries and Hitler?”

In defense of generalizations about The Left, and at least in theory, The Right as well: this has been an ongoing conversation over months. There have been many electrons sprayed here about the differences and overlap among progressive, liberal, Left, Democrats. Asking the hostess, or any other commenter to redefine those at every use is cumbersome, and leads to having the same discussion repeatedly. It might requiring going back into the archives, or heaven forfend, actually keeping silent and listening for awhile to get the flow of how the words are used here.

Given the limitations of all generalizations, those offered here have substance behind them. If one of the many anonymouses here believes that a particular generalization is unfair, a counterexample would be better than a mere complaint. For example, to say “one-third of Senate Democrats voted for X” is a fair counterargument to any claim that “Democrats don’t support X.” The generalization would still hold, but be properly qualified.

It doesn’t surprise me, Lee, that you are the way you are if you genuinely believe that there exists some group of people in America (the world?) who has done all of these things. Banning right-wing talk radio? That must be news to Rush Limbaugh. Supporting genocide? I would hate the Left too if I believe this patently absurd statement. Who does this? If you’re going to criticize people for their actions, it helps to list things they actually do, and not made-up stuff.

But I don’t believe things like this. I don’t believe that you, as a conservative, are responsible for things like the KKK, or abortion clinic terrorism, or gay nightclub bombings, or the myriad of horrors that have been committed in the name of conservative ideologies (Apartheid, etc.). Unless you actually do support these things, I won’t ascribe any blame or responsibility to you for the actions of people who have tangentially related political ideologies. If it makes you feel better to believe that there exists some “The Left” which commits all these acts and relishes in things like supporting genocide, fine, but it makes you a) wrong and b) look like an ass. Grownups should know better.

I have got to disagree with you on this particular point. We did support land reform. The problem is that it was a side policy. We should have made it central to our involvement. Something like telling the GVN “If you do not implement land reform by next Thursday we are outa here by next Friday”.

The other policy we should have pushed, but didn’t, rest to restore elected village government.

The effective, but undeclared, policy was depopulation of the country. This was a very cruel and counter productive policy.

And this, friends, is when the train departs Crazy Town.

Lee, again, if I believed, as you seem to, that every single bad thing ever in the history of the universe is the sole fault of some guy named “The Left,” I’d have a problem with “The Left” as well. So, the result is that I end up pitying you for your profound ignorance of history, etc. But if you honestly believe this stuff - if you know enough history to have some idea of who Goebbels is, and still manage somehow to believe that Jim Crow laws - a militant attempt to preserve class and racial privilege - or that Apartheid - a militant attempt to preserve class and racial privilege - are anything other than conservative, in both their literal and modern political meanings, then…well, there’s really no point in talking with you any more, is there? It’s like trying to have a conversation with someone who insists that his left foot is the Prime Minister.

Was this directed at me? Does this, in some way, follow logically for you from what was said earlier? Again, Lee, not anger, but pity.

I think he was trying to be humorous.

In any case his left foot cannot be the Prime Minister. It is my left foot that is the Prime Minister!

Another attempt to be funny. In this case its dark humor.

But honestly, Lee, I would seriously love to hear you make the case that slavery is a “leftist institution.” Or Apartheid, take your pick. Maybe both? I smell dissertation!

(And her critique of WR’s condecension to Huan, as well as the mistakes about Vietnam, was spot on.)

You see. What did I tell you. There is no way this guy can be for real. The is classic “Three Stooges” comedy from the 1940s.

I think that in the presence of a talent such as yours we can be no more than silent. We conceded. They’re all socialists. I have just one request. The beetles in my garden are socialists as well. Could you please add them to your list? Thank you.

Leftism is ‘”a system of “social interaction enforced by government”.’

Since imprisoning criminals is, in fact, a system of social interaction enforced by government, I can only conclude that conservatives want murderers and rapists to roam the streets, murdering and raping at will, because all else is terrible leftist enforcement by the government of social interaction in the form of a system. You people make me sick. For shame, conservatives! For shame.

I think not all conservatives. The “law and order” faction advocate locking people up for a very long time. Extreme social interaction enforced by government! They’re are more socialist that then socialists.

I think a serious problem you’re having, Lee, is that you have managed somehow to have not learned the definitions of some words. “Conservatives” like to conserve things; that is, they like to preserve political and social institutions as they are or were. Hence, Jim Crow and Apartheid, socio-political systems meant to preserve class and racial privileges against challenges to the status quo.

Socialism, on the other hand, doesn’t mean “government regulation” to any meaningful segment of users of that word. Socialism, which involves transfering ownership of the means of production from one class to another, is explicitly about not conserving a social system. That some who claim to be socialists actually ended up creating new classes and privileges which they then defended - “conserved” - by claiming to be socialists doesn’t change the meaning of the word itself.

Do you have access to a dictionary? I recommend you spend some time perusing it. I ask again, are you a native speaker of English? I certainly don’t have the time to help you out with that, but English classes are pretty easy to come by these days, thanks to liberals who like to help immigrants. Hurray liberals!

Lee…hardly.

enjoy

As Justice Stewart once said (regarding a subject similar to ‘the left’), “I know it when I see it.

It’s one of those terms you just can’t get a consensus definition of - no more than you could define exactly who is a member of ‘the right’.

“and then could you please demonstrate how the prevailing atitude among these people is sarcastic and dismissive?”

Sure! Mind if I borrow your words?

“So, are you arguing that all of the American men and women who sent their sons to very probable deaths in order to drop bombs on women and children were Lefties? I think the Left would be happy to claim credit for the entire Greatest Generation. Thanks!”

Next:
“Could you also explain why the Right never uses sarcasm?”

Why? Neo didn’t say that. Saying that sarcasm is one part of the prevailing attitude of leftist does not equal saying the right never uses sarcasm. Does that help? Or was that just a *sarcastic* comment on your part?

Next:
“Could you also explain what they’re dismissing, and why dismissing things is bad?”

Okay! They dismiss virtually everything that they disagree with. It is ‘bad’ because it shows a lack of respect for the person you are ‘debating’ and it strongly implies an inability to dispute those ideas with facts, logic and/or integrity.

“..explain why.. you all demanded proof that his brother really was who he said he was.. but when someone else claims to be from Vietnam.. you all just assume he’s telling the truth?”

Easy one! If you ever raised a child, would recognize why immediately. When a child tells you something that, on its face doesn’t seem possible and is inconsistent with reality, you probe for details. Often, each probing question leads to more inconsistencies from the child, until finally it is clear (to you and the child) that he has been caught prevaricating.

Since this was not the case with Huan, we couldn’t called him inconsistencies that did not exist.

On the other hand, you will notice that LA, who WAS called out on inconsistencies, soon admitted to ‘misleading statements’.

Worked out great, didn’t it? Funny how it’s not even inconsistent, once you think about it, isn’t it?

Next:
“Either you’re using The Left for shorthand to describe “anyone who disagrees with me,” or you’re using it to describe a tiny group of people with no real influence or power.”

Are those the only two parameters you can think of? Strange…I thought you guys liked to claim that the ‘right’ sees the world as black and white…

I know *I* can think of more possible categories than “everybody” and “hardly anybody”. Strangely enough, I don’t accept your arbitrary limitations.

And Finally:
“Well, I suppose I should be grateful someone is writing to expose the shamefulness of our withdrawal from Vietnam under a Republican president.”

You might want to research that one, buddy!

You might want to research that one, buddy. After all, I wouldn’t want people to think that you are sarcastic, ignorant or manipulating the truth!

Hey! THAT’s what Neo left out about the left - manipulating the truth through ommission and/or commission.

But why are there so many? Well, neo herself states the reason in her post — “To the Left, there’s almost nothing worse than an apostate” — but it’s worth a little expansion. An apostate is a particularly threatening figure to any belief system based more on faith than on reason or evidence, since the primary thing holding such a belief system together is just the solidarity of its constitutuents — the departure of one can undermine the existence of the whole. Belief systems that already feel themselves under siege — whose central values and notions of “truth”, in other words, are already being widely questioned outside the community and under growing doubt even inside it — are even more prone to vicious attacks on those they see as ex-believers. Witness modern day Islam. And its “spiritual” ally, modern day leftism.

But Leo Strauss is no proponent of individual freedoms. The opposite in fact.

So… Hitler was a leftist? And anybody who ever used the government for any means instantly becomes a leftist too? Is Bush a leftist for icreasing spending and expanding federal powers? Does the fact that Hitler threw his resources full force against the Communist Stalin and social-democratic Roosevelt and Conservative Churchill, as well as eliminating communists, socialists, anarchists and liberals in his own country while relying on the support of the international business community makes him a Leftist? Are you kidding? It wouldn’t kill you to admit that Le