I have been feeling cranky lately. My husband has been turning the radio dial over to Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, and my dad likes to watch Fox News. The thing is as I surf around the Internet I hear the same spin and parroting of the Bush administration that defies logic. They continue to blame liberals for everything, forgetting they had a monopoly on power till the 2006 election. You can see this in Nerdman's blog entry, Defending America by not defending America . Watch how he never really questions Bush's incompetence except for the lame excuse, "We NEEDED to get involved. Iraq HAD to happen. Not in the WAY it was pursued, but it HAD to happen." I understand he NEEDS to believe that, because otherwise he has to face the fact that he was horribly wrong. If you read enough about warfare, every war seems inevitable at the time with the drums of war a pounding, you pull back and look at the motivations, the missed signals, poor intelligence, and poor decision making and you can see that no war is inevitable or only has one way it could go.
The only movement to accomplish anything was the act of Democrats sweeping out the screw-ups called republicans. Republicans didn't have the guts to reign in their incompetent President and the American people responded.
Then I come across Becky with lots of hearts. She too likes to blame liberals for everything and attribute positions to liberals that have no evidence whatsoever. She sees Rosie O'Donnell bring up a conspiracy theory and automatically that all liberals believe it and totally ignores that her side of political belief have come up with some whoopers too in WAY TO GO POPULAR MECHANICS!!. She also misses out in having a enlightening discussion about religious literacy to blame liberals for pedophilia, incest, and if you let her go on that we are responsible for Sanjaya still being on American Idol.
The whole concept of a "liberal conspiracy" also makes me laugh. I am a liberal who has over the years worked with other liberals, our "democratic" decision models make it impossible to decide any one conspiracy to focus on. Believe me, we wouldn't get as far as deciding whether to free Mumia, Tibet, or lab animals. I have been trying this novel idea of picking one thing to protest on per protest event, I am still waiting.
Then I found Conservative Voice's blog where he/she states quite boldly in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that global warming is a hoax. Heck, a huge majority of Americans believe in Angels and UFOs.
Don't mistake me, I will defend all these people in the right to believe and boldly state their opinion, but I have the equal right to argue against them and demand that they defend their beliefs. It is their right to question my beliefs. That is how the marketplace of ideas are supposed to work.
I get cranky because I have all these conservative bloggers, talking heads, and politicians telling the public about what I as a liberal believe -- they are absolutely wrong. I am a liberal, if you have a question about what liberals stand for I can tell you. I will give it to you straight because I am not ashamed of being a liberal. I was a liberal feminist in the Reagan era where feminazis and liberalism was attacked all the time. Don't listen to Ann Coulter, Rush, Dr. Laura, O'Reilly, or the Bush administration what we believe because they all have their bread buttered defending a particular ideology. I don't even get shells and shiny objects for sharing my opinion.
If liberals screw up, I will tell you. If I screw up I will tell you.
I am liberal, but I am an independent liberal. I am registered "decline to state" for a reason. Politicians have to earn their vote.
I don't have a problem with traditional economic conservatives, I may not agree with their ideas, but I understand where they are coming from. I do lean towards libertarian instincts, but think you can take libertarianism too far. Religious right folks have the right to believe what they believe, but my tolerance ends when they try to get government to reinforce their religious beliefs. To those who want to snoop in our bedrooms, I say, "Shoo! Get your own life! Mind your own morals!"
I love and live for political debate with people who disagree with me, because I get bored preaching to the crowd. Every once in awhile I get enormously cranky when I hear people parroting the Bush administration or Fox News. People I really try to get my sources through relatively unbiased sources...work with me here.
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