A comment left on my blog by a republican.

This was left on my blog as a response to my use of the word "repuglicon."


<snip>

"Jason, I'm a moderate (and registered Republican). I support candidates from all parties. There are great Republicans and great Democrats, there are bad Republicans and bad Democrats. "Repuglicons" lumps all Republicans together (in a bad way). "

<snip>

'
I am unsure how to respond to this. Part of me wants to tell him to get the fuck over it and if he doesn't like it, too damn bad, go change your party and I will change what I call its members. The other half wants to be be nice about it.

What say DU?

edit: here is the blog entry and comments.

http://thenewspolitic.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-number-1-choice-for-democratic.html

Just curious.

that he is a Lieberman supporter.

Every single person I have met that calls themselves a "moderate republican" insists that the best ticket in the next presidential election is McCain/Lieberman.

Which absolutely disgusts me.

That's why, were it me, I'd strike a dialogue to find out.

"Great Republicans"? Really? Well, I suppose there's a category for great criminal minds, so I take it you're referring to the recent leadership of the Republican party. Guys like Newt Gingrich, Robert Livingston, Tom DeLay, Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Dick Cheney, and of course George W. Bush, all of whom have held leadership positions in the Republican political and elected hierarchy.

I seriously don't know what you're talking about when you say there are "great" Republicans, my friend.

that wouldnt be true.

If there were NO republican voters, there would be no bush in office...

That hasn't worked out very well where it's been tried.

My beef is not only with the people in office as republicans, but also the voters that put them there.






IS that better?

My mom quit the Republican Party about 12 years ago after being a member all her life. She was active, even served as a campaign manager for a seat in the US House of Representatives. (Her candidate won.)

She quit the GOP because the local and state organizations had been taken over by extreme RW religious zealots.

that you'll stop using "Repuglicons" when preening, right-wing bloviators (including Shrub) stop using the phrase "Democrat party."

Honestly, I'd probably err on the side of courtesy, but it is your blog. If it bothers him that much, no one's holding a gun to his head and forcing him to read it.

you never know, he is a republican after all...

Even George W. Bush insults the Democratic Party by referring to them as the "Democrat Party." This is clearly a dig directed at us, and when the top guy in the country is doing it, they have no room to complain when the insult is returned.

Then I'd tell him he'd be better off spending his time and energies doing something about putting a stop to the things his party has done to America over the past six years, instead of complaining about your blog.

We have over 3,000 dead troops in a war that was based on lies fed to America by his party. That should do it.

from duke cunningham to cheney stonewalling on his executives friends who visited him to weapons of mass destruction and the loss of billions of dollars in iraq.

corruption under republick party rule has reached high water marks never seen since reagan and iran-contra.

it's not unreasonable to say that there is a real problem in the republick party.

maybe I should just link him over here to this thread...

Promise you will work to remind fellow DEMS that not all Republicans are con artists if he works hard to challenge RWers who lump all DEMS in the nitch the neocon propaganda machine likes to stuff us in.

Ask him to defend us, the Loyal Opposition:

We aren't against the troops

We aren't for the terrorists

Dissent does NOT equal teason

Critical thought and voicing our concerns is NOT un-American, but VERY American

We do not lack moral values

We do not wage war on Christmas

We do not wage war on Christians but we do want ALL religions to acknowledge that other faiths have rights to. And Citizens have rights to pick their own, or none.

Liberty and freedom do NOT mean doing it Falwell's way

We are sick and tired of being used as scapegoats by the neocons to divert attention from THEIR shortcomings & crimes!

all of you have great ideas.

...as though he's extending a olive branch in his way. He acknowledges that there are bad Republicans and it seems that he doesn't want to be lumped in with them. If he supports candidates from all parties like he says then he might have just helped us win the last election for all we know. I'd be nice.

aid and comfort to a criminal organization. He may be a moderate and a very nice guy, and support candidates of various parties according to his whim of the moment, but in the final analysis he is supporting criminals. Someone should explain to him that the present Republican party has nothing in common with the Republican Party of past years. The party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisehhower bears no relation whatever to the NeoCon controlled Republican Party of today.

He should realize that in he present time it is not "politics as usual" with conservatives in the Republican Party and Liberals in the Democratic Party competing for votes. The very liberties of this country are at stake, and the people who currently control the Republican Party are trying their best to deny them to all US citizens, and are doing a pretty good job of it at that. When one party is taken over by a criminal clique, it is no longer an option to belong to that party and still be able call yourself an American or a patriot. Tell him that.

Return the favor.

:shrug:

He's the one who has to live with himself and the decisions he's made.

"Repuglicons" lumps all Republicans together (in a bad way)." - They lumped themselves together and made a pact with the Devil. The only way to salvation is to tear up their Repuglicon membership cards, repent, and vote Democratic from now on. :)

Paybacks are a b%^&h.

is a criminal, an idiot or a liar or all three.

over the last decade the republican has gone above and beyond with the bad. too many things have happened that the good republican should have stood up against with their party and they chose to willfully be ignorant and support with this administration

i dont cotton to the republican not standing up to their party when they have the audacity to state boldy i am not a christian because i vote democrat, or i dont have family value. not to mentin the extreme corruptness and dishonesty exhibited by the administration beyond anything we have ever seen in any political party of the past and the blind support by the republican party

here is my reply.

--------------------


I am sorry you feel offended by my use of the word "repuglicon" but that is how I honestly feel about the current group of people calling themselves republicans and supporting the crimes and lies and fascist agenda of the white house.

What is it exactly you support of the republican agenda?

Do you support the actions of Mark Foley, how about Tom Delay or Jack Abramoff? No? How about Duke Cunningham or Bob Ney?

Do you support the needless killing of over 3000 troops for a lie? Do you support the killing of more to further the lie? How about Iran? Do you support Military action against them as well?

How about the strawman that is the banning of abortion and gay marriage? Do either of those truly affect you in anyway?

Do you support the starting of wars to hasten the return of jesus?

Do you support the use of a gay prostitute to pretend to be a reporter asking softball questions to the Press Secretary in an administration that is so anti-gay? Or are they? Rove is gay, did you know that? Do you support Bush's Brain even if he is gay?

I don't see how anyone can call themselves a republican and pretend to be for honesty and integrity while their party is the most corrupt we have ever seen short of Nixons' and I bet they got him beat. Oh, but wait, this is the Nixon administration...

How can you live with yourself and the contradictions inherent in being a republican when the people you elect and send to DC have nothing in common with you?

("anyway" in the fifth graph should be "any way.")

Anyway, you might ask him what he's done to oppose the "bad" republicans, and who he thinks they are.

And IMHO, the Bush administration has far surpassed the Nixon administration in criminality. Bush makes Nixon look like a kindly old uncle.

At this point anyone who supports Republicans, even though they privately disagree, is an enabler and must share the guilt. Any decent person would renounce the Republican party, like Jim Jeffords, until the neocon/fundamentalist coalition that rules it relinquishes control, something that goes against their nature as much as recognizing individual rights.

There is a danger in using insulting euphemisms such as Repuglicon. In debate, it opens up an avenue of straw men your adversary can hurl at you to establish prejudices on your side, i.e., that you're a "hater." Personally, I just say "republican" in the anticipation that that word will take on all the negative connotations associated with their crimes. Look what they did to "liberal.":eyes: You've got to always hold the high road. (Not that I do.)

--IMM

I missed a space between "any" and "way"...

better luck to me next time I guess, lol.

In all parties there are those that abuse power and are corrupt. I don't support those people. Those people should be punished.

I can ask you the same questions about the many corrupt Democrats through the years. Did you support all of them?

Did you ever take a look at some of the criminals that Clinton pardoned in his last hours of office. A little quid pro quo if you ask me.

I am in favor of many things that the Republicans stand for, and I disagree with some things as well. In fact, I feel the right wing evangelists have too much of a hold on the Republican party. They creep me out.

It's funny you mention gay marriage. Governor Richardson is for civil unions, but didn't he vote against gay marriage? I believe he did.

In a nutshell, I am not naive enough to believe that there's one party who's "all good" and another party who's "all bad". I guess that's why I'm a centrist.

Despite our disagreements, I am a huge fan of Governor Richardson.

Salon.com featured an article back in 2001 about the people the elder Bush pardoned; they included a Watergate felon, a Cuban exile terrorist and a Pakistani heroin dealer. As Joe Conason asks, "Where was the outrage then?"

Excerpt:


The article also mentions oilman Armand Hammer, who was pardoned after giving well over $100,000 to the GOP and contributing another $100,000 to the Bush-Quayle inaugural committee.

I recommend he entire article; it's very much worth reading. In fact, I would post the whole thing here if DU's rules allowed it.

when I saw the Clinton reference. When all else fails, blame Clinton for something I guess...

I also read that article, and many others about the elder Bush while doing some research for my reply. Reagan had some doozies too.

He's not arguing that Clinton's pardons were worse than those of republicans, he's arguing that they are evidence that corruption and paybacks occur within the democratic party in addition to the republican party.

The counterargument to that would need to be an explanation of why Clinton's pardons were "justice served." I'm not sure we can make that case.

Seems to me he might be trying to play the "moral equivalency" card, though. It makes me wonder if it were pointed out to him that Bush lied us into a war he'd pull the typical freeper manuever of saying, "But...but, Clinton lied about his affair with Lewinsky! See? They're both liars!"

and the moral equivalency was that a republican who refuses to acknowledge the corruption in her own party isn't all that different from a democrat who refuses to acknowledge the same in this party. That's pretty straight forward.

The moral equivalency of the actions of the leaders themselves wouldn't be the Iraq War - Lewinsky; it would be closer to the Iraq War - The Sanctions. We were killing Iraqis under Clinton, too, just with a lot less flag waving.

What do you think?

maybe if he hadn't made the Clinton reference I would have thought there was a chance.

Exhibit A: What did it take to raise the minimum wage? That's right -- Democrats in power.

I'm sure there are. Still doesn't mean their politics or businss practices are anything more than conning the masses out of their money and rights.

I don't let people get away with that. It's about their politics, not their personalities. Republican politics SUCK, not good for the people, and that's just reality. If they're so concerned about public discourse, then tell them as soon as Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Coulter stop ridiculing Democrats, you'll stop using the word 'con'. They do this stuff to intimidate people into not fighitng as hard as they do.

It's not like I'm innocent either, but the fact is that every time you say Rethuglican or Repukes you are actually weakening whatever point you are trying to make in the eyes of the undecided. Even if they are saying Democrat and moonbat.

I wish we could go back to real, civilized discourse. But as long as there are people calling each other names, there will be more folks trying to come back with a better, more biting insult.

I'm a moderate (and registered Republican). I support candidates from all parties. There are great Republicans and great Democrats, there are bad Republicans and bad Democrats. "Repuglicons" lumps all Republicans together (in a bad way).

The one goal we should be aiming for is the impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney. Not only is that the Sine qua Non of all we progressives hope to accomplish in the next two years, it is more importantly imperative for world peace and security and the spread of democratic values.

This fight is important not because it is about the success of a Democratic agenda. It's bigger than that. This is not about a single payer health plan, whether we should be developing alternative energy sources or not or even whether or not a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy. This is about going to war based on lies, no fly lists, NSA spying on American citizens, whether or not an American has the right to challenge his confinement in court or even know why he is confined. This is about whether we should discuss those more trivial matters as a democratic people should be able to discuss them. It is about whether as human beings we are free by nature and endowed with inalienable rights, or whether we have no rights that the chief executive does not explicitly grant to any of us individually.

That cannot be accomplished without Republican support. It is difficult to impeach a president, and it should be. Our goal is nothing less than the unprecedented ousting of all those occupying the highest levels of the executive branch. That is even more difficult, and it should be.

Consequently, we need to drop blanket accusations and sweeping generalizations against Republicans. We are not going to get twenty or so GOP senators voting to remove the regime if we continue to tar each of them individually with childish insults.

Barry Goldwater was a great Republican. Few on this board, including I, would agree with most of his specific stands on issues; but few of his contemporaries felt anything but respect for the man. During the days of the Watergate scandal, it was Goldwater, shooting from the hip as always, who called a spade a spade and said that Watergate "has the stench of Teapot Dome." All eyes were on Goldwater to see when he would break with Nixon. When he did, Nixon resigned.

In short, we need to reach out to Republicans who can be convinced that the Bush regime must fall. The first step is to respect them.

You may be right, unfortunately I have not seen any different. The repuglicons are a rubber stamp congress who follow bush like blind sheep and have lost their soul. When I finally see or hear about a 'good' repuglicon I will gladly stop using this term, I hope they hurry because I don't believe I will see it in my lifetime nor yours.

etc and of course if he ever made the big blooper, referring to a "Democrat Congressman." If he is then you can respectfully type out his entire party's proper name, if not, you'll use the same sort of wordmeistering.

I lean towards "get over it." These things are just small potatoes compared to the issues. Trust a repuke to change the subject to his oh-so-easily offended ego.

...in his eye.

As of now, the Republicans had their chance, and they blew it. And that's what your diplomatic Republican needs to know. The time is not for sniping, and pouting, and throwing fits, JOHN BOEHNER, but to figure out where the party went wrong. The time is not for them to find the next wedge issue to fool the lowest common denominator into sacrificing its young for an imaginary cause, to find their party's soul and mind and work with that.

Here's a hint. Start with Chuck Hagel. I won't agree with him, but I respect his politics.

That will guide you the way to go.

the principle that all men are NOT created equal and especially all those brown guys.

then ask him whether he thinks Republicans have strayed from their standards.

very distasteful. I've certainly done it myself, but when I typed "Repiglicans" I had this feeling reminiscent of doing something bad when I was a little kid.

don't count.

To be honest with you DU is the only place that I interact where so many substitute terms are used. Even in just Dem crowds. In mixed crowds of course it is a very bad idea if productive dialogue is to be hoped for.

How positively would you react to the term "DemoRATS"?

Anything that resembles name calling should be ommitted from any conversation that is meant to be positive. No matter how appropriate those names may be. ;-)

Julie

Really, the commenter should be honest enough to post with a actual logon.

Otherwise how do you know you'd not talking to someone working for lieberman or mccain.

Anyways, the way the commenter brings up "corrupt democrats" without naming any, shows that it's just one of those morons who spouts talking-points and is uninterested in serious conversation.

Just your typical rethug whiners, like the rethugs on congress nowadays.

Taunting someone with that kind of thing is no better than argumentum ad hominem.

It is my blog, should I not be free to say and type what I wish?

Even if it's lame.

And if you make it possible for people to respond to what you write, you should be prepared to get grief from some people who disagree.

In all subsequent replies with him, I did not use "repuglicons"

it was only in the original post to which he replied, and in my reply to him as a reference only.

... he's silly.

Challenge him on it. His position isn't actually unsustainable, it's just that these people usually have massive blinkers with regards to the Far Right. Basically they blank it out and only see "extremism" where there are people with strong views who can actually articulate them in a reasonable sentence structure. They forget to subtract this fact from their reasoning during and after arguments with the aforementioned, and the Far Right never registers with them because they aren't interested in talking to them. Result - they perceive only "leftist extremism" as an actual political force, the Far Right are obviously loonies so can't really have any power, can they?

Boggling, I know, but they appear genuinely to forget that their hideous allies can vote.

what do you think are the odds of this guy walking the talk?

of slurs used by his allies on the right against the left. I'll start the list with:

Femi-nazi!

I think I will do that. Maybe make an entire post about it.

they gave to Chelsea, since Clinton was brought into the discussion!

refresh my memory.

Source

from John Derbyshire in National Review Online:

Some people amaze me with the level of pure hate that comes out of their mouths.

how these same people, who hate liberals, all things Clinton (or Carter), gays, AAAAArabs and many more, can then chastise the left for "hating" Bush.

It certainly seems like "projection" on a mass scale, almost as if it were a contagious disease.

Or if we want to get biblical, from my favorite Gospel Matthew:

But he probably won't make that comment again. To you or anyone else, I suspect.

These moderate Republicans have very complicated and peculiar ideas about politics where they exhange swings and see-saws and catapults and bouncy castles for realistic mental models of political movements and their ideas are about making everything smooth and calm and nice in their minds and have nothing to do with people and everything to do with making the inside of their own heads comfortable. They're even more infuriating in some respects that the honest assholes, at least the assholes can be laughed at, unforunately a lot of the moderate Republicans are quite bright but have insulated themselves against any real analysis roundabout teenagehood by just blocking off anything that sounds "extreme", as if reality comes with a neat, arbitrarily defined absolute scale against which all politics can be measured. This scale is imaginary, and is strong in the minds of those who prefer to playing "guessing" politics, the "surely that can't be so? oh, really that can't be right in this day and age" people. It's meaningless, and so can't be disproved, and so is almost indestructible, even with facts.

They don't know any of this, of course. The last thing they think about is their own thinking processes and how good these might be at establishing an accurate picture of reality. That's *creepy*.

I want to say, I like your writing, and your thinking.

:thumbsup:

:D

:toast:

I like your sig quote too.

Then when he gets all tongue tied in his arguments, gently explain that the Democratic party would be happy to welcome him and educate him in the politics of the correct rather than the politics of the right.

Fiscally conservative and socially liberal. That's at least a start and better than some Dems who are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. In an ideal world it's liberal all the way around, but if I have to choose, I'll take liberal on social issues over liberal on fiscal matters any day of the week.

to tell him that people that sanction theft, torture, and death don't deserve politeness. Society has extended them way more politeness than what they deserve and it time for then to either change for the better or get used to it and get over being called a "repuglicon".

I may use that if it becomes necessary.

I hope he saw it, and has read the great replies. I invited him to participate, and if he does, I hope we can maintain the civility.

If we want to be called Democratic party instead of Democrat party, how hard is it then to extend that same courtesy. If you act like a mirror image of a freeper, you give us all a bad name. Stop it.