Letters to the Editor
nerdnam
Published Letters: 542 Editor's Choice: 61
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Quote:
[Read the article: Party foul]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats believe in conscious, planned efforts for the common good. "
No, Democrats don't believe that. Liberals might, but Democrats are just politicians. Politicians can only represent the people who vote for them, and those people may or may not believe in "conscious, planned efforts the for the common good." Democrats can only be as liberal as their voters are.
Thus if you're a liberal, you should vote for liberals. That will probably be Democrats most of the time. But if the Republican is more liberal than his Democratic opponent, then you should vote for the Republican. That makes the Republicans more liberal. Making the Republicans more liberal makes the country more liberal and eventually that ends up making the Democrats more liberal. Thus liberalism will be advanced and the country will move leftwards.
This simple minded partisan nitwittery of Daily Kos and other netroot morons is just not going to work out well. They are not going to win any votes by being boneheaded partisan bullies. So far, they haven't won anything yet.
It's stupid to be just for a party and not for a set of beliefs. Any party might sell out your beliefs any day just to get votes. Thus you better hold on to your beliefs, because your party isn't going to hold on to them for you.
One hundred Democrats in the Senate will get you NOTHING if those Democrats aren't particularly liberal. Yet this is what the partisans keep aiming for. This makes Daily Kos no better than the dumbest consultant hack in Washington, DC.
It would be better to have only ten Democrats in the Senate, rather than one hundred, as long as those ten Democrats were real liberals.
The Sierra Club and the LCV are absolutely correct to endorse any person they think furthers their beliefs. This gets their beliefs advanced far more than mindless partisanship ever will. Would that Daily Kos and other babbling netroots would ever learn the same lesson.
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The problem...
[Read the article: Party foul]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..is that if the Sierra Club were to reject Chaffe just for being a Republican, then the Sierra Club would lose their credibility on the environment. People would rightly begin to regard the Sierra Club as being merely a partisan arm of the Democrats.
Furthermore, now Daily Kos loses their credibility on the environment as well. How can Daily Kos claim they care about the environment when obviously all they really care about is the partisan label?
Saying that Democrats are 'better' than Republicans on the environment just isn't a credible statement, given that there are plenty of Democrats who are not particularly good on the environment at all.
'Democrats good, Republicans bad,' just isn't a serious political platform. It's wrong on its face and voters see right through it. Democrats need to stand for something bigger than just being non-Republicans.
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Sure, writing is no more difficult than building a house...
[Read the article: Writers, quit whining]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...except that you're not supposed to build exactly the same house as any of your neighbors. At the very least, you better not use the same wallpaper.
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I don't recall that MLK...
[Read the article: Party foul]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...was a member of either party.
What if MLK had decided that Democrats were hopeless, that they were the party of Southern segregationists? It might have ended up giving the Democratic party over completely to the segregationists while the Republicans might have ended up only mildly pro civil rights.
That's what happens when you write off half the country: half the country ends up neither wanting or needing your support, while the other half is embarassed to be seen with you. Hence your influence ends up being nil.
Partisanship is poison to principles. If you're for something, you need to support anyone who stands for your principles, no matter what party they are in. Otherwise you're just behaving like a partisan hack.
There are already very well paid partisan hacks. Why not leave the partisan hackery to them?
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This is a pretty mild criticism of Colbert
[Read the article: A Democrat knocks Colbert, says Bush "deserves some respect"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is it really worth getting hysterical over?
I swear, the 'netroots' begin to sound more and more like the netbullies.
I liked Colbert's speech. I liked that he went after Bush and the press. But I sure don't think everyone else has to march in lockstep behind my opinions.
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Of course liberals can express their opinions...
[Read the article: A Democrat knocks Colbert, says Bush "deserves some respect"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...just like everyone else. And they ought to.
But calling for this guy's whipping (even as a joke on his position), or his removal from the party, or announcing ones own removal from the party, hardly seems like opinion. It seems more like a tantrum.
What shocks me is that Salon almost seems to want to start a lynch mob, and over almost nothing. I understand that the 'War Room' is not meant to be objective journalism: it's sort of a blog, basically news given from a certain point of view. (Although one could wonder exactly whose point of view is being given.) But this seems to go beyond that and over into incitement. Would Salon be happy if someone actually shot the man? Or just ran him out of the party? What kind of journalism is that?
I'm just not sure what the big deal is. Most Democratic politicians would probably agree with him, if only secretly, now. Didn't we already know that? Most politicians recoil from confrontation, want to remain far from the 'bleeding edge,' and wish everybody would just love them and vote for them. If we ran all of the moderate politicians from the Democratic party, would there really be anyone left?
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What to be an individual?
[Read the article: Hipster rebel punk outsiders -- 99 cents a dozen]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Try being non-white, poor, old, handicapped, foreign, or ugly. Then you'll find yourself well on the outside looking in.
However, don't expect anyone to congratulate you on your unique specialness or to even notice your existence. Cool and hip are terms reserved exclusively for the white middle classes.
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Hey, maybe this fish
[Read the article: He'd rather be fishing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...will be Bush's killer rabbit?
Oh, wait, the media doesn't treat Republicans like that.
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And he's going to keep on dropping.
[Read the article: At this rate, he'll be at zero by July]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He's already lost everyone opposed to the Iraq war. Now he's losing pro-war supporters because of his listless prosecution of the war.
He'll get below 30 before the end of the summer.