If someone wrote this sort of nonsense lumping all women or gays into some make-belief box, Glenn Greenwald and you moonbat Salon posters would go batshit. But you feel perfectly free to trot out this utter bullshit here, and you all so gullibly lap it up because it merely reinforces your preexisting hatreds and prejudices.

Reality-based community, indeed!

I have to agree with this particular contrarian. There's always a danger when talking about a group of overgeneralizing. It is a fraility of human nature and is not confined to one side of the political spectrum. There is a difference however between saying that all Conservatives drive gas-guzzlers and all Muslims are terrorists. One results in someone looking foolish, the other

results in tens of thousands dead.

I don't think I need to state my preference.

(I live in urban Chicago. Crazy with SUVs here

But you must admit, they do make it easier to widen the parking spaces....

The difficulty comes from needing to discuss stereotypes while wishing to avoid validating them. Once you've bought into the notion that certain vehicles are masculine and others feminine then your ready to take the step that dropping bombs is masculine and diplomacy is feminine. Once there, the dismissing of John Edwards as a faggot is perfectly sensible.

SS has joined nabalzbbfr as a shining example of how trolls can actually serve as illustrations of the topic under discussion.

Lefties who insist that the verdict is meaningless because the WH is omnipotent and one Righty who quickly wants to change the subject.

If we get out of this with our Constitution intact, history will look back at this period and hold it up as EVERYTHING to avoid (at least for another 40 years).

It would appear that Glenn has struck a nerve.

As long as we're accepting gender stereotypes and schoolyard politics as the basis for discussion, isn't attacking Iraq while OBL goes free the functional equivalent of beating up the little kid with the glasses because the team captain stole your lunch? Just wondering.

Its always easier to argue with the words your opponent would have said if he were saying what you could argue with rather than the words he ACTUALLY said which are of course completely irrelevant to your point.....

If the Post stuck to a more liberal editorial policy, it would lose tens of thousands of subscribers to the Washington Times

There's a difference between having a Conservative editorial policy and publishing an entire page of back-to-back lies. Todays offering sets a new low.

I'm certainly looking forward to your tackling that one. The number of falsehoods per column inch boggles the mind. I imagine sourcing all the refutations would take several hours.

neurons specifically tuned to model the behavior of others internally

As one who thinks that more human behavior is hardwired than we generally credit, I'm going to chime in that while there is a failure of empathy that characterizes conservatives, contrary to jojo's assertion, I don't think that its a cultural phenomenon.

I think that people have undersensitive empathy circuitry first, which CAUSES them to become conservatives. The degree to which they succumb ranges from the mild (people are poor because they lack ambition and the welfare state rewards laziness) to the ridiculous (Muslims want to take over the planet in the name of their false God and make us all pray to Mecca at the point of a sword...those BASTARDS!!!)

In all cases, the inability to imagine the view from the other side drives the thinking.

It's actually quite a fascinating subject and unfortunately I've got to run before exploring it in the depth I'd like. On my way out the door though I will throw out one sweeping generalization. The less exposure people have to differing cultures in the first place, the more likely they are to end up conservative. If you look at the red state/blue state divide, it seems to me that a lot can be explained by the simple fact that the coasts have large diverse populations while the inner states are more homogenous and less populated in general.

When I want good solid (and unshrill...) info on Plamegate....

http://www.davidcorn.com/archives/2007/03/the_libby_lobby.php

David Corn was after all rather central to the whole thing.

It's helpful to remember the concept of plausable deniability as well. You're correct that no one is on the AIPAC website is openly calling for bombing but then again Bush himself kept referring to the Iraq war as a last resort when he meant no such thing. It would be nice to think that AIPAC would be satisfied with a diplomatic solution and that the administration might be pursuing one, but it would also be nice if 10 million dollars fell out of the sky and landed in my lap.

As always, time will tell.

one of the more potent examples of how the process goes wrong. While the people who will defend this lawless behavior, will have GW Bush or Alberto Gonzales pictured in their mind as they envision the basically benign effect of ignoring Congress, the people who are actually empowered to act are mid to low level operatives, agents or soldiers who are basically left to their own judgment as to how to implement what they've been directed.

That they would overstep their mandate and engage in actions that are either bullying or a serious breach of privacy is as unsurprising as the morning sunrise.

The good news, is that most people, if they realize the full implications, would agree that controls are appropriate. We MUST keep up the efforts at education!