If You Believe In Nothing You'll Fall For Anything

Getty Images

"You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life."  Sir Winston Churchill

A brilliant comment by one of my readers Stefan, on the last thread, I felt was a good platform for a debate on exactly why the once considered serious Democratic party has been reduced to a dysfunctional nihilistic disorganization whose childish behavior is not befitting the dignified office of the President of the United States.

"The most serious problem with the Democrats and the political Left in the US at the present time is that they have become intellectually hollow on domestic social issues, on national security, and issues pertaining to international relations. “If you believe in nothing you will fall for anything” would be a fitting epitaph to what was once a serious political party.

If we, as a country, are to have real, serious, “grown-up” debates on real, serious, and “grown-up” issues like Race Relations, Education, the War on Terrorism, Iraq, Abortion, etc. etc. then it is absolutely imperative that we use real information and real facts in coming to decisions that affect our lives so deeply. The Democrats have shown no intention of doing so.

Even the most respected and senior members have slid into the abyss of elevating half-truths, intentional mischaracterizations, distortions, and rumors to level of unassailable fact and have used these as a basis to make decisions and attack every policy that is put forward.

This is irresponsible in the extreme especially because it is done solely for the sake of tearing down and smashing anything that is even remotely connected with the Bush administration in the hopes of regaining power. It is unfathomable to me that this is taken so far as to even endanger the lives of the very people they wish to lead, the troops that would fight on their orders, and the very social fabric of our society.

They no longer have a viable platform of serious ideas or solutions for anything. They are chasing the Republicans around opposing everything they say or do without exception. The Republicans are far from perfect but in general they have shown some sense of vision for the country and the world, albeit a bit wobbly-kneed at times, and they are still proud of what America is and what it stands for.

This is not a game. We are not here to win cheap points or cheers from foul mouthed, crystal-gripping, college student protesters. The Democrats need to “grow-up” very soon…like now! We need them because they are Americans too and we should be at least on the same planet when we make serious decisions. The terrorists sure as hell are being serious and they are not playing whiffle-ball out there.

When people dismiss the entire text and message of the president’s State of the Union speech as lies days before it is even given it is just a case in point.

This all reminds me seeing a child in a store throwing a temper tantrum where their parents are forced to literally drag them along because they simply have refused to continue walking."

Feeling hard done by simply does not cut it: "...it seems throwing good Democrats under the bus is a trend these days."

Glenn Greenwald @ Crooks & Liars: “The President's State of the Union speech will undoubtedly be scarier than Halloween and Friday the 13th combined. Fear is the only weapon they have.”

Read John Hinderaker's article: "So there we have it: just another routine morning of Bush-bashing in the liberal press. There are too many Ahabs to count, all single-mindedly hunting the same whale, hurling their harpoons into the water and gnashing their teeth in frustration at the fact that, no matter how promising the target seems, they can't quite strike the fatal blow they are all hoping for."

Related on ATB:

Why The Bush Doctrine Is Not Dead
The D Stands For Defeat
The Controversy Over The Anatomy Of A Conservative Mind
A Democrat Lies This Republican Doesn't Die
The Constitution Is Not A Suicide Pact
The Bugging Tap Dance
Enemy Of State
Daily Kos Is A Mouthpiece For Kerry's Campaign
It's About The 2008 Election Stupid

Linked to  Outside The Beltway, The Right Nation, bRight & Early, The Uncooperative Blogger, Right Wing Nation,   Point Five, Basil's Blog, The Real Ugly American

Comments

[weekenderman]

So who wants to predict the electoral spread of the 2008 presidential election? :)

[Snippet]

The word "liberal" simply no longer means what it once did. It has come to mean, "socialist."

However you feel about socialism, this is regrettable, because it obscures terminology that once had a (relatively) clear meaning.

A liberal used to be one who advocated economic, and social FREEDOM, established through free elections.

I believe both parties sincerely believe in free elections - ie, political freedom, but split on the other two.

What seems to have happened is that Democrats emphasize social freedom at the expense of economic freedom.

Republicans emphasize economic freedom, at the expense of social freedom.

"Liberalism" split and went both left and right.

In a way, liberalism is the ground of contemporary politics and we are fighting over the difficult question of which "flavor" of liberalism - economic or social, is more important.

It is tricky because there is a bit of an antagonistic relationship between the two. Economic freedom requires social constraint. Social freedom has economic costs.

[epaminondas]

I have been a democrat all my life.
In the 60's I worked in civil rights, helped organize anti vietnam protests, understood and supported the ACLU over Skokie

Now, I detest the dems at the national level more than Nixon.

What happened?
Rather than take a corrective course after 1972, they accepted the idea, as a single bacterium at the time, that the USA is the seed of problems in this world. It wasn't enough to say that Vietnam (or at least the WAY we did Vietnam) was an error, instead they, in thrall each day more and more to the Noam Chomskys finally came to accept that we are monstrous and were at our inception, by white slaveholding males and the spineless cowards who enabled them constitutionally (I suppose is the way they would look at it). This process ran to completion with the disgusting, execrable speech by 'stalins in their gulags' Burton.

Why?
2 reasons.
1) It is always much simpler to blame one's self ..neuroses
2) It is far safer to blame a stupid Reagan or chimpymchitlerburton than to stridently point a loud 'FINGER' at salafi extremists who are brandishing gintsus, and then to committ an act ...cowardice

The result is a democratic party with less ideological core than the Whigs in 1856, and less reason to exist. We see from them a Sharpton instead of a Harold Ford, and a Dean rather than a Lieberman (who is excoriated by the internal protectors of civil liberties for the actual idea of having a different opinion). They have no idea who FDR or HST were, and would regard them now as xenophobic aggressors, and american imperialists.

This is why the word liberal today has become a terrible epithet. But the inheritors of this word are people whose code for social justice is not an american value, and whose solution for real issues of aggression against us from overseas is a more isolationist one than any we have seen from moronic republicans in the last century. No doubt they would feel we brought Pearl Harbor on ourselves through economic sanctions which drove the Japanese into a corner.

Time for a new grouping, and a new party with a core of ideas which are more than the sum of partisan opposition, and special/single interest complainants. The democratic party at the national level will become shriller and shriller as they circle inwards to bring out the support among the remaining dwindling cadre.

Too bad for us all. They need to come back to america.

[Stefan]

Torture has become standard US policy
The NSA is conducting “domestic spying” on Americans
Republicans are going after the elderly on Medicare
They are racist and hate the poor (see New Orleans)
They cheated in 2000
They cheated in 2004
They regularly work to keep minorities from voting
We have been losing in Iraq since the war started
US soldiers are terrorizing Iraqi citizens
Guantanamo is the new Gulag
The US military acts like the “Nazis, Soviets,…[and] Pol Pot”
Judge Alito is a “dangerous” right wing radical
Judge Roberts is “dangerously” out of the mainstream
Bush was behind 9/11
Bush was warned about 9/11 by the Saudis
Bush is in league with Bin Laden
Bush invaded Iraq for his oil buddies
Bush tricked the whole world by pretending that were WMD in Iraq
Bush invaded Iraq for Halliburton
The Republicans are trying to destroy Social Security
Bush’s judicial picks will support the “Unitary Executive” so he can consolidate his power
The Patriot Act is destroying your Civil Liberties and turning the USA into a police state
The Republicans are responsible for Global Warming
The extreme "Religious Right" has taken over the country
Etc., etc.

These have been standard talking points for Democrats/Liberals and are all demonstrably false or wildly exaggerated not to mention unspeakably destructive to our standing in the world. They relentlessly repeat these and many other allegations. I know many people (normally quite intelligent and discerning people) who repeat these items as if they were all true. Theme and Variations on the drumbeats of failure and conspiracy have become the marching tune of the Democratic Party. I don’t know how it could be denied by any fair minded Democrat and many don’t even bother to deny it. If it is malicious to take seriously the things Democrats profess from the mountaintops to the world then I am guilty. I s’pose sometimes they are “just kidding”, like when they all claimed that Iraq had WMD. I know for a fact that NO ONE can refute that these kinds of themes have been variously riffed on by people like: John Kerry, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Sharpton, Dick Durbin, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Tom Daschle, Diane Feinstein, Joseph Biden, Charles Rangel, Patrick Leahy, and this doesn’t even get into the columnists, academics, activists, and mouthpieces (like Air America). I suppose that implying that these people make up the very heart and soul, body and brains of the mainstream Democratic Party would just be “claptrap”.

[Screejay]

"They are out there. Really. But they do require some searching, they do require some reading, and they do require some thought, rather than mere knee-jerk tirades." - Joseph Marshall

Here's a knee-jerk for you Joe. I think you are calling me and others that do not agree with you stupid. That's a very good way to start a debate.

[Darrell]

Conservative friends?
Another whopper, Joe?
Substitute fact for fiction, truth for lies, reason for deception, up from down, and pigs still couldn't fly.

[Alexandra]

If you really read it, it is clear that both Greenwald and his sources have perfectly real and serious views about the contemporary press and the particular Republican political message that is largely directed to independent voters.

You sound so pompous Joseph, and I am not sure on what basis. Glenn has me on his short blogroll and I have him on mine. We not only read each other's blog but happen to consider each other blogging friends. To say that he has perfectly real views is quite right, to say that they are agreed with is quite wrong, and to say that we have not repudiated them is also quite wrong. We have had a long discussion on this blog with him involved, over the issue of wiretapping which is his favorite baby, on the The Bugging Tap Dance thread.

So in answer to your question: "Do you refute them? Does Stefan? Do you even take them seriously enough to actually quote them and address them in detail? Not in the least" Yes we have refuted them at length and provided evidence to the contrary, since you choose my friend Glenn Greenwald as an example that I as a conservative dare use.

I am sure Glenn will be delighted that you are defending him, but he does that quite well without your help.

For example, did you really read the entire essay of Mr. Greenwald, or did you simply cherry-pick the most provocative statement from it as a validation of Stefan's "people" who are discounting Bush's State of the Union speech?"

Yes I have read the short post Glenn wrote on Crooks & Liars which I link to, obviously YOU have not as you are calling it "an essay"??? And yes the whole point was that it relates to the State of the Union speech which Stefan talks about, obviously. Cherry picking....you mean choosing a link which relates.

They are out there. Really. But they do require some searching, they do require some reading, and they do require some thought, rather than mere knee-jerk tirades.

As I say Joseph you ARE pompous.

[Joseph Marshall]

What you have just quoted from Stefan is a fatuous piece of claptrap. It is a feel-good tirade that is literally empty of content.

There is a very simple test for this: take the above and plug in "Republicans" and "Right" for "Democrats" and "Left" and vice versa, as well as "Democratic political ambition for regaining power" for "Bush administration retaining power" and it would read almost equally sensibly and would fit right in with some of the more farouche diaries down in the bowels of Daily Kos.

How can one take you seriously when you feature something like this?

My good conservative friends seem not to know the difference between "real, serious, “grown-up” debates on real, serious, and “grown-up” issues" and mere repetition across blog upon blog of any contentless frothing rant against targets of hatred and contempt which are mere labels even when they happen to be the real names of real people.

You cannot find real, serious, and "grown up" views on anything from a Liberal perspective unless you actually look for them and read the views with some care.

They are out there. Really. But they do require some searching, they do require some reading, and they do require some thought, rather than mere knee-jerk tirades.

For example, did you really read the entire essay of Mr. Greenwald, or did you simply cherry-pick the most provocative statement from it as a validation of Stefan's "people" who are discounting Bush's State of the Union speech?

If you really read it, it is clear that both Greenwald and his sources have perfectly real and serious views about the contemporary press and the particular Republican political message that is largely directed to independent voters.

They might be wrong views. They might be inadeqate views. They might be views that it would be perfectly easy to refute with some real argument and real evidence. That, by the way, is what a real "debate" is all about.

But they are real views, they have real content, and you could not possibly transform them into statements made about Democrats, no matter how hard you tried.

Do you refute them? Does Stefan? Do you even take them seriously enough to actually quote them and address them in detail? Not in the least.

This fact leaves me in some doubt about how much my good conservative friends know what "getting serious" really means.