Actually, the real problem that the Democrats have

Politics and religion
21

I agree with Brian and Rich that both the liberal worldview and the neoconservative worldview are valid. And what Rich says is also correct, that the Democrats need to work in the grassroots level and sell that message, because right now, people who buy into the neoconservative worldview outnumber those who buy into the liberal worldview. The great progressive programs of the past (if you believe there are any) were sold to the American people. They were not presented as: “If you don’t believe we should do this, you’re a stupid fool and we’re not going to waste time with you,” which seems to be the Democrats’ current modus operandi.

If I tell you, “You believe that? You’re a moron,” then you’re not going to listen to anything I’m going to say. I’ve done as much with McCullough in this thread; do you think I’ll have any prayer of convincing him otherwise, no matter how rational my position may be? At this point he is probably so turned off to my point of view, that he wouldn’t even listen to someone else making it.

Rather, if I tell him he’s right (from a certain point of view) from the outset, he’s gonna listen as I drum up evidence for my point of view, followed my my point of view.

In short, I’m a fool for offending McCullough’s sensibilities, and he is right for feeling offended. Which makes the rest of this post moot:

There are legitimate policy-related reasons to dislike Bush. I’m sure those are the reasons you have. Those were the reasons I had for disliking Clinton in 1996. I eventually came to realize that the reason I had my political beliefs was more because I disliked Clinton than because I really believed in them; when I saw the pictures come back from the concentration camps in what used to be Yugoslavia, I could not look myself in the mirror and still claim that our involvement was a waste.

Did the elections in Iraq have poor turnout? Did they happen? Did we capture Saddam Hussein? Did we take Tikrit? Did we take Baghdad? Did we have tens of thousands of soldiers lost while Iraqi troops pushed us back several miles deep into Kuwait? If Bush meets the goal, the goalposts move. Why do the goalposts keep moving back, if they are not there merely to show that Bush is wrong?

These are insights that took me a great deal of time to acquire, so I don’t expect to convince anyone in a single pathetic message-board posting. The good news (for America) is that some of you already seem to know it. I do not care for either party; however, I find a one-party nation undesirable.

Well, it’ll be undesirable once the Social Security reform passes, but not before then.

22

Bush’s own goddamn goalposts were 1) stopping Saddam’s WMD program, 2) a stable, democratic, western-aligned Iraq. Any of those sound like met goals to you?

And what’s your evidence that the neocon position enjoys significant support? They’re a minority in the GOP that just happens to have taken over.

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60,608,582 votes after 4 years of neoconservative policy is not significant? CNN.com Election 2004 - U.S. President

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60,608,582 votes after 4 years of neoconservative policy is not significant? http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/[/quote]

According to that link, 57,695,898 voters do not support neocon policy. That also sounds like a significant number…

25

Qualification: Those numbers are just from within the US…

26

60,608,582 votes after 4 years of neoconservative policy is not significant? http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/president/[/quote]

“Voted for president Bush” is the not the same as “agrees with neocon policy.” It’s a minority position in the republican party. If you can find polling supporting invading & converting to democracy our way through the middle east, and the whole strange straussian thing, go ahead, but I doubt it’s out there.

27

All right, McCullough, you’ve convinced me. The Iraq invasion is a complete clusterfuck, and the Neocons are a minority; in fact, you’ve convinced me that most people generally hold liberal views, not the views of the Extreme Right.

You’ve convinced me that most of Bush’s policies are bad for America, and bad for the rest of the world.*

Now let’s pretend we’ve rolled the clock back to the day before election day. Armed with this knowledge that Bush is bad, who should I vote for?

[size=2]*Actually, I knew it this along, which is why I didn’t vote for him… as I stated in another thread.[/size]

28

The neocons are a minority, you nut. The GOP is composed, numberwise, of small business owner-type moderates, and social conservatives. Powerwise, you’ve got the elite evangelicals like Bush, the rich guys like Scaife, and the ex-communist neocons like Wolfowitz.

But in terms of numbers, there’s not that many of them. THey aren’t even libertarians.

29

“The Republicans are a party of bad ideas, and the Democrats are a party of no ideas.” - Lewis Black.

30

hah, i love lewis black. always one of the best daily show segments.