My wife shot me a “let it pass” look, later saying that she didn’t want our son ostracized (!). I basically gently countered with your points above, but let it drop, as arguing with your wife is about as productive as arguing with an IRS auditor.

The upshot: little Che and our son eventually went their separate ways (on their own), so I can tee off on his mom if she ever starts up around me again.

Since these Europeans obviously knew nothing about U.S. politics except what they read in their daily rags, I didn’t answer “Yes.” (Actually, I now self-identify as “Independent” even though I’ll probably vote Republican from now on.) It was clear that in the Euro world, Republicans equal “deviants,” like child molesters, or some such.

I didn’t get too far in either conversation because these Europeans thought they knew everything they needed to know, and weren’t the slightest bit interested in my views.

This is the same reaction I always get from my liberal friends and family. Their minds are closed. I would be more discouraged if it weren’t for the fact that so many Americans are “Jacksonians” and don’t fall for the liberal bullsh*t.

Neo, I agree with you that one should keep trying to change closed minds. But many of these minds are closed so tightly that there can be no discussion at all. As to identifying oneself as a “Republican,” that involves a belief that the Republican party is unified in some way. In Chicago, there is no real Republican party, so I would never identify myself as one.

I certainly will do my best to promote McCain over Obama, though I know that will get me nowhere. As far as I know, every person in my social circle voted for Kerry. I couldn’t get even one of them to consider the fact he was a liar and a lightweight nobody. These same people don’t want to look at Obama’s record. They refuse to do so, in fact.

Since we know that the bulk of liberal ideology hinges on emotion and popular consensus rather than reasoning. Those trapped in the group think arent going to come out of it while their beliefs remain unchallenged.

Yes, you’ll look like a fascist meany. Yes, many on the left get down right angry and un-hinged, but it absolutely must be done.

This country will descend into a divided mix of antagonistic ethnic, racial, income, etc special interest groups, each demanding special constitutional allowances for themselves with the justification born of self victimization. You all ready have people talking about the US Constitution being a “living” document, and in the UK, the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people, has suggested that sharia law should coexist along side an established form of government and legal system that generations of their own citizens gave their lives to preserve.

The only thing that ties us together across all these divisions is our commitment in maintaining a fair and impartial system of government. To do that takes courage to defend.

This isnt an appeal to make liberalism go away, it is an appeal to force liberals into being honest about their own beliefs and exercising true tolerances for other people’s views.

I find foreigners in the US dumping on Bush to be particularly egregious. At a recent meeting a highly opinionated foreigner dominated a dinner table conversation with what a moron Bush was. A number of us studiously examined our plates and ate in silence, but inwardly I fumed at the ignorance of this clown disparaging the American President in “no tickee, no shirtee” English.

On the obverse side of the coin, I lived in Europe for quite a few years, and used to smile through gritted teeth when I was introduced as “an American, but you know, a good one, a civilized one.” If only they knew about my cloven hooves…

It’s a tragedy that whole groups of people like this can close their minds so much. What we really need to do is break the two party system. Neo-cons are vastly different than true old-time conservatives and there are a lot of people in both the major parties that by all accounts should be libertarians. Let’s get some political diversity, and then we might be able to spread some common sense and open the way for reason.

The vast majority of my town still supports TED STEVENS.”"”

Oh, you assumed that commenters here would have a problem with Ted Stevens?

Nyuck! Nyuck! I’m kidding, since I imagine they would, and I can also understand why you’re aggravated by the Stevens loyalty. Had it not been for that selfish, greedy old prick, as well as the likes of Trent Lott, among others, Congress might still be in republican hands.

I would exempt hard-core leftist agitators (e.g., Ayers, Angela Davis, Lynne Stewart, and others of that ilk) from the latter generalization, because I consider them to be evil. By contrast, most liberals strike me as silly cognitively-challenged fashionistas, fundamentally good people, but ones who shouldn’t be trusted with the responsibility of feeding the dog.

I will say this about the Left and about Republicans: when I was on the Left I found Republicans to be very tolerant of my Marxist views and only wanted to have a truly intellectual conversation. They didn’t call me names. They didn’t call me stupid or evil. I’m not making this up. One of the guys who lived in the house we rented when I was in college was a very pro-Reagan Republican, and he knew I was a revisionist Marxist. He was amazingly tolerant of me and I had a lot of respect for him, even if I did not agree with his politics. And when I was a Leftist I didn’t treat people on the Right the way today’s young (and old) Leftists treat people Right-of-Center.

The nation right now really is a powder keg, in the midst of a vicious political war in the midst of a larger war with Islamic jihad. And we on the Right are losing the fight, but I don’t think it’s because we’re cowards and won’t engage. We just see the futility of it, when the education system, media, and legal establishments are in the tank for the enemies of the nation.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

I especially like the meme that Cheney became VP to make money (!). By leaving Halliburton he took a roughly 99% pay cut (from $20 MM to $200 K). Now that’s how to get the big bucks!

I replied in some detail, trying to leave her room to vote for Obama if she must, while being clear what a poor, unqualified candidate I think Obama is.

I don’t know what Democrats do this year if they are not enchanted with Obama. I can understand voting against Republicans and the Iraq War (though the latter point is becoming moot) but voting for Obama is something else again.

There is a point at which one must declare oneself on serious issues. I don’t need to run around telling people I am a Republican: I’ve already declared my Christianity and paid the price. And, in conversation, I have espoused conservative principles. Being a Republican is almost a given.

At a certain point, one must filter one’s friends. The leftist and liberals drop off over time because their political leanings deleteriously affect their character and their intellect: those who deny God exists — which is the foundation of the Left and Liberalism — will be given over to a disordered mind and, in time, to their depraved passions. One simply cannot maintain friendships with such people without hurting oneself. Besides, they instinctively sense who is with them or not: they begin realizing it when you won’t get drunk or smoke pot with them.

I think so too. Cost what it may, we can’t let that which those who went before us fought, died for and left us go down the tube.

But it shouldn’t be a horrible deal when someone goes into a tirade about Bush to say affably, “Gee I really like him.” If the tirade continues, I’d be an imp and add “You know, I bet he would like you too”.

I started on the left and came to the right, but did so before I met my friends where I live. It’s a heavily blue state and you’d be impressed as to how well people who are good friends in other ways will accept you as you are.

If they only like those with whome they agree and you still want to be friends, then find things that you do agree on. It’s okay to have friends that focus on topics non political, such as art, music, gardening, etc.

The ever witty Mr. Taranto found a clip in which a liberal was lamenting how well conservative nominees do in these proceedings and came to the conclusion that this was the result of a conservative needing to deal with liberals in the field of law, but that it was entirely possible that liberals in law would never come in contact with a conservative. The argument was that conservatives had more practice with dissent (and by inference, tolerance).

But intelligent lefties know their views are nonsense and totally unworkable. Evidence for this: they don’t actually implement their philosophy in their own lives (except in symbolic ways). For example, avid supporters of labor will hire non-union day laborers to work on their houses. Those posturing about the need to raise taxes go to great lengths to avoid taxes.

Your post nailed it down. And I saw this many years ago when I was on the Left. The ones with the leadership positions and the good jobs behaved like - well - capitalists, while those on the bottom agitated for revolution. And I would not call the upper crust ones necessarily intelligent. Clever, cunning, and calculating - yes. Intelligent - no. I do not credit a person lacking integrity as being intelligent in a deep way.

I am still trying to understand the mystery of the contradiction: how can people who so obviously benefit from capitalism be so anti-capitalist? It’s as if they really do not understand how the wealth is created. And if that is the case, then they are as dumb as dirt.

{sigh}

These people have absolutely no intent on either a fair debate or one in which their minds are opened. I have so much long experience with them that I no longer wish to punish myself with the futility of it all.

It is, however, true that over time I listened to the Right’s arguments and gradually changed over a period of years. What happened was that I was predisposed to take good arguments seriously and ponder them in the privacy of my own mind, but first I was trying to find a way around their salient, hard points. After literally years of investigating human behavior and the scientific basis of knowing and of embracing certain values over others I came to realize that the critics who had the greatest impact on me, Michael Novak and William Buckley, Jr., were right. Mine was restless mind interested in two things: how to free human beings from poverty and meaninglessness AND the truth about our condition. Even while I was a committed revisionist Marxist I had not burned any bridges because I knew that any ideology not based on the truth about our condition was doomed to failure.

I was a restless soul. And that is a precondition for being flexible and open to the truth. Most people I meet are not interested in that journey at all. Hey, I still revisit thinkers I thought I once understood and now have doubts that I truly understood.

Experience: Generally, political operatives and political junkies are not inclined to be into the Socratic dialog. They are after victory, not truth. They are two very different things. And the activist types I met during my Leftist days were not intellectuals. They were organizers and doers. They had no patience for the things I wanted to talk about, since they already knew where they were going…

You may have read my comments on Book’s post there, but if you haven’t, then you might not realize that there are certain defenses built into people who have been lied to by propaganda yet don’t want to admit it.

Those defenses can only be bypassed by subterfuge, stealth, and cunning. You cannot openly come out and go toe to toe in honesty argument with them. Then their defenses come up and they have a way to exclude you and not listen. But if you pretend to be a neutral or an ally, and then you provide arguments to test and weaken the propaganda they have heard and believed in all their lives, then you have a chance.

Even if it only educates you, and does not change their minds, it will allow you a deeper and more insightful glimpse into why they think as they do. Once you find that, everything else becomes golden.

I am still trying to understand the mystery of the contradiction: how can people who so obviously benefit from capitalism be so anti-capitalist?

Guilt. They didn’t earn it. That means somebody has to blame. They can’t blame themselves, that’d be called introspection and taking responsibility. So they have to blame… you or the system or America or capitalist pigs.

It’s as if they really do not understand how the wealth is created.

Michelle never understood how her wealth was created. Oh, she worked and scheemed to get those increases, but she never accepts that the things she did to do so were unethical. And if people like her engages in unethical actions to get money, why shouldn’t the white boys have been doing so for centuries? She didn’t create wealth, thus the white boys must never have created wealth any ways. Michelle stole the money for her salary from a bribe her husband gave the hospital she worked out, so this must mean every rich person exploits and steals money in order to benefit.

Mine was restless mind interested in two things: how to free human beings from poverty and meaninglessness AND the truth about our condition.

The transformation from Leftist to true classical liberal requires such things.

Many potential classical liberals gravitate towards the Left given their rhetoric of being against oppression, exploitation, and what not. But eventually, if you pay attention, it’s all lies. They’re not against oppression. Look at their position in the Cold War, on Iraq, and for slavery in the Civil War. They’re not against exploitation, look at Al Gore at he exploits Global Warming for cash.

Eventually such things will turn the real classical liberals away from Leftism. Which is why so many Leftists were called useful idiots by the Soviets. A Leftist that has trained in Marxist revolutionary tactics and techniques, yet defects to classical liberalism, is a dangerous tool indeed to be left unattended to. For he is no longer a tool, then, for he now understands the score. The value of a tool rests in its ability to do what you tell it to do. A true classical liberal will realize where the Soviet Union was taking the world and would refuse their commands and desires. That cannot be allowed. Which is why the useful idiots cultivated by the KGB in America were one of the first to be slated for the wall once Communism reigned supreme in the US.

I never paid much attention to politics on tv until after 9/11. Everything I saw in the news was either unrelated to me or so grossly politically convoluted that I saw no reason to pay attention to it. It was only after seeing 9/11 happen on tv, as it happened, and watching the current events as they happened, that hooked me on political debates and what not.

I considered the nature of terrorism and their use of planes, with them still on it, as living guided bombs. I asked myself “what kind of a person could do such a thing, sacrifice their life just to kill people they don’t even know and had never offered them any kind of threat”. I considered the kind of monster that would do such a thing and I knew, to the depths of my soul, that with my experiences to that date, that I could not face that kind of monster with courage in my heart.

The acts of 9/11 were never social problems to me. Social problems like bar fights and disagreements can be solved with social skills. But this kind of violence is completely outside of society. It was war, with no rules and no traditions. Just killing people, however you could, whenever you could.

People kept treating terrorism as a social problem, though. They kept saying that if only we did what they wanted, gave them more support, gave them more money, or erased their political grievances, that they would stop. Since when has a murderer and evil villain stopped his actions because you gave him what he wanted? Even if you give up your own life, that doesn’t mean he won’t go to the next person and kill them as well.

Asocial problems require asocial violence. The only place that offered such knowledge and solutions were the Republicans, Bush primarily, and the US military. They killed, even if it was in a social chain of command framework due to orders. But they killed without a court decision, without debate, and with effortless ease seemingly. That kind of solution was the only one I considered even half way effective against the kind of monsters I suddenly realized inhabited the world in greater numbers than I had ever suspected.

Killing those monsters did not require social skills or solutions. And the ones who advocated such things, were no classical liberals to me.

I chose to neither hide or broadcast my political and religious beliefs (the latter also costing me some jobs). If the group is *that* bad then there are other problems, they aren’t otherwise nice people.

Simply for being tertiary involved with some DoD projects I’ve had interviews immediately stop when that is mentioned (Amazon.com was one - a very abrupt “thank you, we are not interested” when asked if I had professional contact with people outside and I said I had with the Israeli Defense Force as they were using something I had written).

People that do that are not “otherwise nice” and there are deeper problems than that. You will not be happy, you may fool yourself into thinking you will be less happy if it came to a boil, but in the long run you will be better off.

I understand what you’re saying. I guess it depends upon the setting and the circumstances. I dont let it go by in the class room. I dont think it’s the place to discuss politics, unless of course, it’s a political science class or something that deals with law and public policy, but in both writing and biology I try to add my two cents worth where possible. I get nasty looks and the instructors sometimes get frustrated, that I just dont let them get by, but hey–we’re suppose to respect all points of views arent we? At least that is what both instructors have said at the outset of the term.

Or did that pertain only to people like me?

Anyway, I was wondering were Ymar had gotten off to that we dont hear from him till today.

Yes, I did get the impression that if the Left ever won and imposed a socialist regime that people like me would have been the first to be done away with. I asked too many questions and I do not reside in a land of ideological certitude. I took the arguments from the Reagan people seriously. Also, the activist types did not like the fact that I was a practicing Roman Catholic, and a seminarian to boot (or prior to entering the Jesuits after college, one aspiring to the priest
hood).

It is interesting that today I am not entirely comfortable on the Right, but relatively more so here than I was as a Leftist. Yes, I want smaller government, but I still believe in some kind of social safety net and the judicious and efficient use of smaller programs to help people out. I am very pro-military, because I’m a veteran, but also because I’m realistic: there are evil actors in the world. Right now we are fighting the world’s oldest surviving totalitarian ideology/cult. I believe my country is a good country and has brought far more good things into history than bad effects. No other society in the history of humanity is so willing to criticize itself and own up to mistakes. I could go on and on. I feel very fortunate to have had the journey I’ve had, plus I am grateful to live in such a great country. I meet so many people who feel no such gratitude or who have not been blessed with the kind of education I’ve had.

My impression of most young Leftists these days: FAR less mature intellectually and emotionally than most of us realize. It’s frightening. Much of it is not really their fault. The education system and the culture surrounding them has not served them well.

I do know of a few others, but that’s because we’ve worked out more signs and countersigns and hidden symbols than gay people in the bad old days. And when we SUSPECT the other might be “one of us” we dance and prod and dance again, always ready to vanish at any sign of disapproval.

P.

I find that it’s actually very useful to first let them see that you’re a nice person, who cares about children, the elderly, the poor, and women, and then you can start to gently question their knee-jerk responses with ‘well, maybe it’s not quite like that’ or ‘maybe there’s also this other thing to consider’ and when it’s not coming from a known ‘evil Republican’, they might actually have a more open ear for it.

But I also agree, I wouldn’t trust anyone that would drop me for my political beliefs too much.

Oh, give me a break. A socialist regime? Who believes in that anymore? Done away with? You’ve got to get out more, FredHjr.

What is important to the American Enlightenment for a classical liberal is the ability not to demand to persuade others, but to accept others as they are. That said, it’s not an honest pursuit to go in hiding.

I’ve held my views and made my points in the way that I felt was most valuable in the discussion. But I listened to the other side with the respect that my friend had every right to entertain whatever view he or she discussed.

But dissent is a good thing and it can be used to annoy (as is the theme noted above). Or you don’t have to let it get to you, but use what you learn in the other side of the argument to make your own argument better.

And no one is infallible - it’s okay to challenge your assumptions. In fact it’s recommended. But it’s not likely that I will be thinking that my life is controlled by persons or entities other than myself, simply because someone says something. One of the reasons I went to the right is how tired I was of “being free to do as I was told”. Repetition is assumed to mean that the other person will agree.

I don’t buy it on the left and I don’t buy it on the right. Accept that people see the world differently and have a good discussion to challenge assumptions, but with the respect that the other person has every right to believe whatever idea that you might think is crazy.

I have been surprised how some of my friends are affected by what I say and come more to the right, but it’s not my intent to change someone else, but to have an honest discussion.

What’s also not discussed here is that few liberals encounter any conservatives and become intellectually lazy. It’s not the sole province of the left. There are individuals claiming to be conservative who are also intellectually lazy. These arguments are futile, because someone is projecting their own self image of inadequacies onto something or someone else.

The good news is that when some liberals meet conservatives, some do learn to challenge their assumptions.

If you read the comments for Bookworm’s Room before this post, you would know the answer to that question.

I also comment at Blackfive, Villainous Company, and Donovan’s Castle.

FredHjr

I mentioned the class of useful idiots and the KGB due to the contention on whether fake liberals were evil or not. To be evil you have to knowingly do things that destroys the world, holds humanity back, and perpetrates the greatest vices and horrors in human history.

Is what the Left does unethical? Yes. Are they evil for doing so? For those that believe so, you give them too much credit. Only a few individuals and villains are truly evil. They know that they serve entropy, that the only progress they are creating is the progress for humanity’s eternal suffering. They are enemies of humanity and they know it.

But for the most part, most Democrats are useful idiots precisely because they are easy to delude. You cannot call someone that will willingly delude themselves, due to how long they have invested into this world view, “evil”. They aren’t leaders or criminal masterminds. They should not be given a title they have not earned.

One of the many unethical actions Democrats have made people do concerns Columbine and gun free zones. They put so much energy into destroying the foundation of the United States Constitution, the 2nd Amendment, yet they blame Republicans for Columbine and other violence. They blame them for not fixing these asocial violent acts with social solutions. Democrat social solutions, that is.

Disarm the population, let them get slaughtered, then say it was the people trying to arm the population that was at fault. Make the population negative towards foreign oil, artificially restrict the supply to increase the price of energy, and then say that it is those trying to use drilling as a fake long term solution that is at fault for the prices.

Who believes in that anymore? Done away with? You’ve got to get out more, FredHjr.

Look at Mitsu. He seems to believe certain things died out just because people say they did.

On that score, you should really read Chuck’s take on Pelosi. Very funny.

Nobody said Chuck was fair to the Left

That depends on whether honesty is a virtue or not. Is it honest, and thus a virtue, to tell the murderer where your family is and how to take out the defenses around them?

Most classical liberals end up as cannon fodder for the political masterminds aka ideological spiritual leaders, like what happened in the Iranian Revolution, precisely because classical liberals shun deception, manipulation, real politek, and propaganda operations. Military affairs is something they won’t ignore, but military affairs by themselves don’t teach you how to counter insurgencies or avoid political downfalls such as the one Khomeini engineered.

Neo here was versed in psychology of one sort or another. She had a leg up due to such. MOst classical liberals aren’t in fields where they study human nature by osmosis, however. They are thus easily manipulated and led astray by false promises that takes advantage of their idealism.

But every belief and philosophy can be taken advantage of. It just always seems to happen to be ours because the enemy is very aggressive in such matters. They cannot easily defeat us in an even fight.

Concerning Fred’s comment on how classical liberals aren’t comfortable on the right, this is due to religious conflicts and social issues.

In a war, those things get erased most of the time.

“accept that people see the world differently and have a good discussion to challenge assumptions, but with the respect that the other person has every right to believe whatever idea that you might think is crazy.”

This is also a hard thing to do - how many of the above “Liberals hate me” really should be “Normal people hate me”?

To take my example of the interview at Amazon - how did that occur? In this case they asked me “Have you ever had to deal with people from other countries or different cultures”. My response was “Yes, my software was picked up by the Israeli Defense department in use for their cluster simulating tanks, it took work to get past the language barrier but we eventually worked it out just fine” - “Thank you, we aren’t interested with someone who has done that”. WTF? To be fair I don’t know if that was some type of corporate policy (say, all people must fit their corporate culture) or I was just “unlucky” in who I got to interview me.

I’ve met conservatives that I wouldn’t hire because it was a problem, it would have been a problem even if you were conservative because *everything* came back to that - not good.

However I’ve found VERY few places that are conservative only - most of us just don’t really care. I’ve found MANY liberal/leftist places that will not hire conservatives because it belies an inability to think (same thing with religion - I’ve found my religion matters little to most other religious people or agnostics, to most Atheist I can’t clearly think and shouldn’t be hired). This happens even to the point of regularly being asked questions about it in technical interviews (the IDF question from Amazon wasn’t the first answer I had given that had political implications - though it was the first I had volunteered).

I’ll reiterate something about the two sides - Conservative thought is along the lines of individualism. We mainly worry about how your ideas work out.

Leftist/liberalism is more along the lines of communal thought. They are mostly worried about how others think/feel about you.

Given that how the community thinks about you is MUCH more important in liberal/leftist groups. It’s not really “close minded” in the sense that they do not want people who think different as much as thinking different means you can not think clearly.

Same thing with “patriotism” - all of us want the US to do well just that some of our definitions of “doing well” are highly different.

Like if i were to comment somewhere “Our enemy Saudi Arabia is funding x% of mosques in America”

the response will be

“That NAZI Bush goes to Saudi Arabia and holds hands with them. That’s what you deserve”

I tell them their life must suck if every waking moment they are evualating how the present thing in their mind can related to Bush.

Nonetheless, as a lone conservative in a synagogue filled with off the wall lefties, I haven’t experienced the ostracism that Bookworm fears. After making a few (or more than a few) vain attempts to convince me that Chimpy McBush-Halliburton is EEEEEVILLLL, my friends have concluded that they are not going to change my mind, and politics just doesn’t come up.

Ooh! Snippy arent we?

Pelosi is not a member of the Socialist International. Give me a break. That stupid rumor started because a columnist compared her membership in the Congressional Progressive Caucus with the Democratic Socialists of America, who support the Progressive Caucus (but not the other way around).

Another point is democratic socialism (for example, as they have in Sweden) is nothing like Soviet Communism, with gulags and so forth. Sweden is a capitalist country that just has high taxes. They also have the highest average income in the world. To conflate the two is ridiculous.

Nancy Pelosi is a member of The Progressive Caucus, itself a part of The Democratic Socialists organization. Go ahead and google it and you will come up with articles which substantiate what I just mentioned. I would post the links, but I’m (honestly) kind of dumb about how to do this in the blogger forum. I know there’s a way to post links so that you can just click on it and go right to it, but someone is going to have to point me towards the instructions on how to do this. I’ve tried to cut and past links here before, and the links are so lengthy that they get cut off and are useless.

For the record, since we live in a country where people are free to hold any views they wish, I am never in favor of silencing or suppressing anyone’s views. Now that is a far cry from how the Left treats its opponents’ opinions. In many places you cannot say certain things which violate political correctness, and I think you do indeed know what I mean.

And so, since it is a free country where one should not be arrested for being a socialist, holding socialist views, or even being a Communist, WHY IS IT THAT PEOPLE WHO DO HOLD THOSE VIEWS HIDE THEIR TRUE IDEOLOGICAL IDENTITIES? It does beg the question.

And that is why I respect, even if I disagree with him, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He has always been open and candid about where he is and what he believes in. The guy has courage and he’s a pretty straight up guy. He’s the only member of Congress/Senate who has described himself as a socialist. He belongs to the same organization that a number of others belong to, only they will not openly admit to this. Pelosi is one of them. I have zero respect for cowards and liars.

When I was on the Left I never hid my true political leanings. I called myself what I was, and the consequences be damned. I was not ashamed of it. I don’t believe in deceiving people. I knew plenty of fellow-travelers who were into deception, and that was just one piece of the entire chain of contributing factors which led to my eventual falling away from the Left.

If socialism is not such a bad thing in the eyes of the people who belong to its caucus and parent organization, why are the politicians who belong to it not more open about it?

Sweden is a capitalist country that just has high taxes. They also have the highest average income in the world.

Rubbish.

Sweden: $36,500

U.S.: $45,800

Next time please check your #@$%^&* facts.

Btw, Swedish voters kicked out the Social Democrats in 1991 and installed a Conservative government.

Ummm, William “Cold Cash” Jefferson winning his re-election bid this year would top that…

Oh, that’s easy. They believe themselves to be among the “elite” in society, so when the Revolution comes, they’ll be in a position of power and comfortable circumstances.

Stalin had a phrase for these people: useful idiots. Once their utility has passed, they’ll be sent to the gulags. Or worse, the firing squad.

To most Americans, calling Pelosi a socialist just sounds like a term of abuse from the right, and reduces the right’s credibility, not the other way around.

Be ready to claim to not want to talk about it for fear of intolerance.

3) Perhaps suggest that it’s great that Bush is going to be gone in a few months. Perhaps remind the friends about how much they said they hated Bush, and ask if they wouldn’t be happier with McCain?

4) Perhaps ask a liberal friend– who was the best defender of Bush, or what was the best argument for Bush’s policy?

A point not made — the last 6 years of demonization of Bush was false. Bush was merely the incarnate non-PC leader. It was really the demonization of non-PCness. The silence in defending Bush’s policies, by pro-war folk, has encouraged the thought-fascists to be even bigger bullies.

Finally, it would be good to get more JOKES and humor about it.
I suggest — “Bush was so lame, he thought there were 57 states!” or,
“Bush was such an opportunist — he said he’d stand by his pastor, but then dumped him. No wait, it was his Sec. Defense Rumsfeld he dumped.”
“Bush was so arrogant — I heard he wanted to adjust his daddy’s Presidential Seal even before he was elected.”

Go to this source.
Scroll down to HTML Tags Chart, and go to the second row, where Name= anchor. It may take a while for the page to load, so be patient.

Unfortunately, Neo’s site does not allow for previewing of comments. Here is a site that has previewing of comments, which you can use to test your posting.

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/