My e-mail reply to a repub friend...

I'm about to send this response to a friend of mine who is a republican voter (claiming to be a swing voter). Please give me advice on facts or points of argument before I hit the 'send' button. Thanks
NOTE: His original e-mail message is displayed in black. My responses are displayed in blue.


Hey, man,
I hesitated about responding to your last e-mail because I got the distinct vibe that tensions were starting to elevate. I apologize if some of my comments have been snarky or otherwise disrespectful… I freely admit to getting a bit snippy when I talk politics, but I don’t mean to attack you personally on issues where we disagree.



I waited till after the holiday to respond, and I decided to take a point-by-point approach this time, since our e-mails have become rather expansive and cover diverse topics. I’ll make a valiant attempt to be even handed and not too condescending. Forgive me if I get a bit passionate… nothing personal. Well, here goes:






Hey,

To clarify my poisition, I'd like to say that I don't consider myself a "Republican". I'm a conservative with a pinch of liberal thrown in for flavor.

I DO consider myself a Democrat! More accurately, I'm a liberal who hopes to put candidates in office, therefore I am a Democrat. The Green Party is actually more in line with my ideology, but they haven't a chance in hell of winning meaningful elections, so they are largely irrelevant beyond their ability to force issues into the debate between the two major parties.

I don't agree with Republicans when it comes to stem cell research. I think it's a great way to look for cures or at least relief from catastrophic illnesses and other ailments.

I agree… and I really don’t fully understand the Republican aversion to such things. They tend toward the slippery-slope fallacy on many issues, and this is certainly one of them. EG: “Stem cells are harvested from fetal tissue, so if we allow stem-cell research, evil atheist scientists will encourage abortions so that they can get their hands on all those juicy fetuses!”

I oppose the criminalization of abortion. I don't agree with abortion, but I don't think my personal opinion should be made law for the masses to follow. The same with gay marriage. I don't think it's right and I don't have any plans to engage in such a union. However, I can see where it would benefit those who find themselves in the position.

I have no love for abortion, but I fear any regulation of a person’s right to make choices concerning reproduction. Banning abortion is, in it’s most fundamental sense, a lot like requiring vasectomies. Repubs and conservatives in general seem sooooo concerned about the government sticking its nose into their business, but seem to have no problem with the government regulating reproductive rights. Go figure.
As to gay marriage, I’m all for it. Realistically, homosexuality has been around for as long as humans have been documenting their history. All the gay and bisexual people I have ever known were born with their sexual orientation… they didn’t choose to be gay or bi any more than you or I chose to be straight. If Bob and Steve want to be able to legitimize their relationship and share legal spousal benefits (which are freely afforded to hetero couples) then, damnit, they should be allowed to do it. Equal rights for ALL!!!

There is a lot, as I said in my last email, that I agree with when it comes to the Democratic party. I just agree with more of the Republican views. So what does that make me? I guess I'm one of those much sought after swing votes, a fenece straddler or an undecided.

Sitting on the fence gives me a wedgie from hell! I’ll vote for a retarded chimp if it’s running against a republican. Just my luck, it’s the republicans who decided to run a retarded chimp! Sadly, though, the chimp has won one election and stolen another.

Sometimes it seems to me that the Dems issues are to oppose whatever the Repubs believe instead of having issues of their own. Not to mention, like I said befoe, there is that thing Dems have about calling you stupid if you don't think like they do, and that's offensive.

This is a hard one to address. The phenomenon you describe is due to the fact that the Repubs have successfully framed the debate. They state the issues from their point of view, putting the Dems in the position of the opposition party. Hence, the public perceives the Dems as reactionary, contrarian and obstructionist. The Dems DO have issues of their own. They simply cannot be boiled down into such simplistic terms as those of the Repubs (whose simplistic terminology is often misleading and frequently hypocritical… eg: family values, patriotism, tax relief, War on Terror, No Child Left Behind, prescription drug benefit for seniors…) Democratic issues typically revolve around social justice for ALL citizens, protecting the environment, protecting the consumer from un-checked corporate greed, and the cultivation of a foreign policy based on diplomacy, interaction and understanding rather than the ‘go it alone, might makes right’ policies of the Republicans.

I'm not a "NASCAR Dad", but I do watch a little NASCAR. I'm not a homeschool freak or a paranoid who believes the Russians are still out to get us. I really don't believe I'm too stupid to pour piss from a boot with directions on the sole, but in talking to many Democratic party supporters that's the message I get.

Many Democrats react with a kind of intellectual elitism when they encounter opposition. I’m as guilty as any Dem on the planet, too! If I see a NASCAR sticker on a vehicle, my estimate of the intelligence of the driver of that vehicle drops as much as it would were I to see a confederate flag decal. This may be an unfair and inaccurate assessment of a person’s intelligence, but the majority of NASCAR fans that I have met personally are responsible for this tendency on my part. Dems, myself included, typically expect everyone to be as politically oriented as we are. Most people are not. When a highly political Democrat encounters a typical apolitical or single-issue individual, we often treat them with disdain for not being able to discuss issues in detail or defend their positions with anything other than jingoism (‘my country, right or wrong’) or faith-based assertions (‘Bush is a good Christian man and he’s keeping us safe from the evil-doers.’)

My view of myself is a twice divorced (until very recently) father (yep) of a teenaged daughter (in a few more years). I work up to 60 hours a week to make less than $50,000 a year. (ditto) I read, (me too) I watch the network political talk shows, (I avoid FOX News… Republican propaganda of the most Orwellian variety) I try to stay informed and try to avoid all the propaganda spewing from both parties and base my opinions on what I feel is the right thing to do. Again… I do the same, though it appears that our opinions on what constitutes ‘the right thing’ differ. I do indulge in Democratic Underground. Less propaganda than a community of leftist Dems who discuss all manner of political and cultural topics in a ‘no conservatives allowed’ online forum.

I feel we are and should be the world police. If not, who will be? And trust me, if we don't do it, some with a less than savory agenda will.
I totally disagree. Old school thinking. Sorry. And, by the way… Name ONE of those people/countries that will take over/dominate the world if we don’t act as the world police… do this with a straight face and try not to sound too paranoid when you do. As far as policing the world goes… that is the job of the UN! America was instrumental in founding the UN. It was established as an oversight organization that uses international consensus to smack down those who would endanger others. America has no more right to enforce its will upon other nations than do Iran or North Korea. I’m so over the America-centric world view taught to us in high school by Dena Lang and Douglas Borden.

I recently saw a bumper sticker that sums it up pretty well: “These Colors Don’t Run… The World”

You said in the last message that we were losing "thousands of lives" in Iraq. That's not really acurate since the toll has been slightly more than 1,000.
True, I overstated that figure for effect, which was disingenuous at best. Sincere apologies.
That's not to say that every American life, and all lives for that matter, are not important and meaningful. All life is worth living and preserving, but to refer to your own words again, this world isn't black and white and this is one of those grey areas.
I see no grey to it. The war in Iraq is WRONG from the word go.

The people serving in the US Armed Forces are volunteers. No one made the sign up and there isn't a draft. (yet) They signed the dotted line and raised their right hand and took the oath to defend this country and follow the orders of the commander and chief. I did this and I'm better for it.
Glad you weren’t sent to fight in a bogus war that was ill conceived and ill planned.

Having served I do believe I have the right to say that lives will be lost and that's the unfortunate cost of doing what the military does.
Having not served, I do believe I have the same right… I just prefer that military action that endangers lives be undertaken only when necessary.

I also understand the argument that a lot of these kids joined to get an education, job training, to see the world, and to get the hell out of places like our shared hometown. On the other hand, how many people have served, gotten their education, gotten their job training, seen the world, and gotten the hell out of forlorn places such as Piedmont, AL. Well I can tell you of one and you're talking to him.

Yep. It doesn’t matter WHY a person enlists. What matters is that you are an active duty or guard/reserve soldier when war is declared, and you have no option but to be true to the oath you swore when you enlisted. And, to be honest, I’ve never heard anyone claim that the soldiers should be exempt from following orders because their reasons for enlisting didn’t include ‘fragging rag-heads in the desert’

Believe me, I hurt when I hear we've lost another life over there or anywhere for that matter. How many lives did we lose in the Revolutionary war? How many in WWI and WWII? (Iraq is nothing like these wars) How many in Korea and Viet Nam? (Iraq is TOO MUCH like these wars) To coin a phrase, "war IS Hell" and young men and women lose their lives, but they do this to secure the rest of us the right to live in a county that enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. (see below…)

Is the cost too much? I guess that depends on how you figure it. I look at my three children and know that doing what we are doing is the best chance to insure they don't have to die in a building as the result of a terrorist attack. I see it as a chance to insure they will be able to go to school, receive a quality education, attend college, and have the chance to chase the dreams the people before them chased. They will have the chance to live free to do or not do whatever they want in a county free from terrorist threats and actions. To me, the cost of the lives we've lost is high, but well worth it in the long run. Thank goodness our military has been there before, they are their now and will continue to be there whenever our country and our way of life is threatened. (you can start whisteling the national anthem at anytime now)lol.

Here’s where we differ most significantly. You think this war is about terrorism. I think this war is about establishing an American military presence in the middle east.

The invasion of Iraq has been planned and plotted since the mid 90’s by numerous neo-conservative chicken-hawks, many of whom now hold positions of power in the Bush administration. You say you like to read? Well, start with this http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf then look at this http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm and spend some time on the same site reading other documents. Pay close attention to the dates of some of the documents (…before 9-11 ever gave G.W. Bush’s presidency its thin, fragile veneer of legitimacy.) Look at the signatories attached to most of these imperialist fantasies.

Man, this war was in the planning stages long before the name Osama Bin Laden was ever heard (and subsequently forgotten) by most Americans. The military conquest of Iraq was being plotted even as congressional Republicans were lambasting President Clinton for ordering retaliatory missile strikes on Iraqi radar installations in the 90’s.

This is not the ‘War on Terror’! 9-11 was just the ‘new Pearl Harbor’ the neo-cons needed in order to get the public to support such ridiculous shit as the invasion of a nation that had been pummeled into submission more than a decade earlier and ground under the boot of international sanctions ever since.



Not to belittle your last paragraph, which I would agree with 100% if I felt that the war in Iraq was in any way reducing the threat of terrorism, but the lives being lost in Iraq are accomplishing none of the things you listed… not even indirectly. The way I see it, not much changed on September 11, 2001… unless you consider the political leverage it gave to the Bush administration (and boy, have they played it for all it’s worth!) I was shaken up for a month or so after 9-11, but I quickly snapped out of it when I realized that the Bush admin. were going to use the fear generated by the attacks to strip away civil liberties (The U.S.A. Patriot Act, for the love of Mike…) alienate the U.S. from former allies by drawing a line in the sand (“You’re either with us, or against us”) and then demanding that the countries who wanted to support America after the attack would have to do so by buying into an unjustifiable attack on a country that posed NO TREAT to America or any other nation and had no ties to the real perpetrators of 9-11. Look at how France and Germany were demonized for refusing to go along with this bullshit! (Remember ‘Freedom Fries?’) Look at how the United Nations has been smeared to the American public as ‘irrelevant’ or ‘weak’ because they insisted we allow the international team of weapons inspectors to do their jobs before we came tromping in with flags waving, ‘Shock and Awe’ and all other manner of pseudo-patriotic video-game violence! (Just don’t show any flag-draped coffins being unloaded at Dover AFB. Wouldn’t want the war to be a downer.)

But NO! Bush had to play cowboy! Had to send in the troops to disarm an un-armed country. Had to topple a ‘brutal dictator’ while ignoring the belligerent Kim Jong Il of North Korea (who boasted of his nuclear capabilities and made direct threats against the U.S. and Japan. Too bad he wasn’t sitting on the world’s largest oil field when he did it… otherwise we mighta had to kick his ass…) Here at home we had Toby Keith, Allen Jackson and Darryl Whorley to pump up the masses by glorifying the war in the lyrics of bad country songs. We had Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ted Nugent, Michael Savage and countless other right-wing AM radio nut jobs to twist the facts enough to convince a significant portion of the population that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11, that most of the hijackers were Iraqi (none were, most were Saudi) that Saddam had huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was minutes away from having nukes! It was all a pack of LIES! Now proven beyond doubt to be such.

I do not support the war, and I pity the soldiers who have been sent to fight it. I wish them the best and hope that not one more person will have to die or be injured it this war, though I know that such a hope is futile. I do not support the mission of the troops. I’m not even sure I know what their mission is. It certainly isn’t to rid the world of terrorism. The U.S. presence in Iraq, if it has any effect at all on terrorism, is a huge recruiting boon for al Queda.

Fuck The War. Fuck Bush and his Neo-con chicken-hawks. Fuck the lemmings with the yellow ribbon magnets on their cars. (Funny story: recently, a guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot got pissed at the fact that I have a big Peace sign sticker on the back of my van. He somehow got the idea that hoping for peace was at odds with supporting the troops. What the Fuck? He looked to be in his late 20’s, so I suggested that, since he was so supportive of the war, he should go enlist in the military branch of his choosing and do his duty in Iraq rather than spewing his ignorance in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Guntersville, AL. Not surprisingly, he had no comeback to that.)



OK. That’s enough for now. Hope it didn’t come off too harsh.



I’ll talk to ya later!

Be cool

Jeff

I agree with you on just about everything, and think you've compromised where you could and tried not to attack your friend, even if you did call their leaders names once or twice.

You know, I've tried and tried to tell people about the Project for the New American Century, and they look at me like I'm a conspiracy nut. I direct them to the website and show them that it was the neo-cons themselves that put it together, and they still look at me like I'm crazy. Has anyone found an effective way to get conversations about the PNAC started?

This will be the first time I have tried to steer my friend to info on PNAC. Hopefully he will actually read it.

Appreciate the input!

This part is too strong, dude:

You wrote: "Sitting on the fence gives me a wedgie from hell! I’ll vote for a retarded chimp if it’s running against a republican. Just my luck, it’s the republicans who decided to run a retarded chimp! Sadly, though, the chimp has won one election and stolen another."

- To the guy you're writing to, this is going to come across as mean, and as a total ad hominum attack. I'd cut it out.

And this part:

You wrote: "This is a hard one to address.... etc."

No it's not. Tell him what Democrats stand for. Don't TALK ABOUT framing the debate. Frame it for him. Just cut this part down to your last sentence and it would be better.

Re: NASCAR dads. (You write "Many Democrats react with a kind of intellectual elitism when they encounter opposition." etc.) He thinks that D's call R's "stupid." You AGREE with him and you JUSTIFY it. Don't do that. Just apologize, say that it's bad behavior on our part, (which I happen to think it is) and move on. Don't try to explain it, it just makes it worse.

I'd cut out your last paragraph. I think you make some good points in the paragraphs before them, and I think in this one you come off too harsh.

Why don't you request that he watch "Hijacking Catastrophe" and then see what he thinks? He actually sounds like a pretty reasonable guy to me. This will bring in the PNAC stuff *for* you.

Ciao,
C

Especially concerning the "framing the debate" segment.

I really don't want to be too harsh, so I'll try to find a way to soften up the rhetoric...

thanks

a little angry at the end, but that's all right. I say send it as it is.

to take the time to explain all that. I thought it was great and well thought out, and hope your repug friend actually learns something from your views. :hi:

I tried to be even handed, though I did get a bit hot at times

Thanks for your support!

It comes off like you're just venting off steam... like you're just getting it out of your system. Then you calm down. That's not going to convince him as well as coming across more calmly and rationally.

Lose the exclamation points and the vulgarity. You want him paying attention to your words and ideas, not your tone and your emotions.

I have already cut the last paragraph. It is too emotional!

Both concerning the Iraq War:

1. When discussing the American casualties in Iraq, be sure to also mention the 100,000 Iraqi citizens--not insurgents, not terrorists--who have died as a result of the invasion.

2. When explaining why the Iraq Invasion has not made us safer, talk about the exponential surge in eager terrorist recruits since the invasion. The fact is, as illogical and evil as terrorists are, they don't "hate us for our freedoms." They hate us because they see us as a greedy, imperialistic power bent on destroying their way of life. The Iraq War helped to confirm this in their minds, as well as in the minds of less radical Arabs who otherwise might have been more sympathetic to us. This may be a painful truth for us to accept, particularly since the Bush Administration has worked so hard to demonize the terrorists, which doesn't help us fight them. We already KNOW they're evil. What we need to do now is understand the enemy, by honestly trying to assess his motivations. Only when we understand the way terrorist leaders think, can we expose their radical dogma for what it really is, and thus dry up their supply of new recruits (ok, you don't have to include all of that...I got a little carried away).

It's an excellent letter as is, but I think these two points might provide further support for your already strong arguments.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1129/dailyUpdate.html

...released late last Wednesday so not to create a fuss.

Good letter, hope this helps.

Cam

I'll shoot him the link!

the same as I had in mind. Otherwise I think you have stated you postition very well.

but apologize let's him blow off anything you write later.