The left and hatred

The bile is strong

from JoeUser Forums

http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2004_03_14.PHP#001868

The hatred towards George Bush and Republicans in general has certainly increased since the 2000 election. I visit a lot of websites during the week and while I see a lot of idealogues on the right, there is no right-wing equivalent to Democratic-underground.

Even here on JoeUser, the tolerenace for the right by those on the left seems to be problematic, at best. I have seen people argue that this site is right-wing. Why? It's pretty easy to demonstrate that as being false. Just look at the top 20 blog sites on this site (right of page) and you'll see that there are more that are left of center than right of center.

Here's an excerpt John Hawkins found on Democratic underground:

SCRUBDASHRUB: OK, this is juvenile but this is how fed up I am. I need to watch it because I don't want to wind up getting shot, but I was driving to work and some idiot drove by me on the expressway whose license plate read 1GOP1 (I might add, he was driving completely arrogantly (no signalling, etc...typically of the party he's so proud of).

I waited until he got far enough ahead of me and promptly flipped him the one finger salute, then gave him three fingers to spell "W" and the thumbs down symbol.

Jack @ss...

boobooday: "Don't get shot. But really, he deserved it. It's like smoking. We have to make it socially unacceptable to be a Republican.

That's what they tried to do to the word "liberal." Time to ATTACK BACK!!"

nicecakes: Sure thing. Time to go beyond politics and get personal to start a new civil war! After enough victories we will be the only party and one party rule will rool!

MadProphetMargin: "That's not juvenile. Juvenile would have meant following him to a gas station, and "improving" his license plates when he went in to pay.

Try this one: On a Friday, after working hours, put a crack & peel sign on your local republican headquarter's (8.5X11 crack & peel inkjet paper is available at any major office supply company) front door. Have the sign read "Whites only - Blacks please use rear entrance."

With any luck, it will remain up until Monday. For additional fun, call the local papers and complain about what you "just saw".

MPM,
Master election prankster."

lastknowngood: "Call DMV with tag # and get his address then send off for some gay porn to be shipped to his house. Just one of my little evil ideas to use on arrogant christens and prudes."

Now, maybe this kind of hatred and vitriol exists on the right but I can't find it. This isn't some lone kook here, this is several people all wanting to do harm to someone simply because his license plate has the words GOP on it (which may or may not have anything to do with being a Republican).

This is the kind of intolerance Bakerstreet made note of in his article http://bakerstreet.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=10659 .

 

 

democrat
21,293 views 55 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Conservatives don't have to be angry right now. They're in charge, and things are generally going their way. But there was certainly plenty of anger among conservatives four years ago when Clinton was president.

The other thing is that hatred of political leaders is probably enhanced by changes in the media. Now, one can go on the internet and pick what sources one reads, and, unfortunately, most people pick sources that confirm their own biases. Thus, they don't ever see the strengths of the opposing point of view.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Not all us lefties are hate mongering angry people. But just so we're clear, there's enough hatred on both sides.

Cheers
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Sure there is hatred on both sides, but after trying to take a more even handed approach throughout my university years, I have abandoned any attempt to find a middle ground with conservatives. Why? Um, Ken Starr, gay marriage, Iraq, Halliburton and on and on it goes.
Anyway, people are allowed to vent, but it is conservatives who have hatred as part of their platform.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Boba Fett: And yet a lot of people have no problem with those things you mention, ain't Democracy great? Is Halliburton any different than TotalFinaElf, other than the fact the money isn't going to a insane, genocidal megalomaniac, as the French would have had it? All those things you cite are complex issues that are very subjective, not as obvious as you pretend they are.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Wow, and I thought I liked to demonize the competition! How silly to have so much rage over a license plate though. It would have been funny (although I'm glad it didn't happen) if he had done something to the car only to find out after that GOP was actually the driver's initials.
I do think DU is probably the equivalent of Slashdot to geeks, and don't represent the majority of Democrats. I'm curious though... is there a Republican equivalent? That seemed rather childish, and I'm just wondering if the radical Republicans are as childish.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Most people, regardless of political philosphies, aren't hateful.

There are extremists on the left and on the right. I am not trying to argue that there isn't hatred on the right. After all, you have the people who murder abortion doctors, the Oklahoma City bombing, etc.

The difference, however, is that while there are some kooks on the right who take things to violence, they are few and far between (just like the violent kooks on the left are few and far between).  But what I don't see on the right is the sheer NUMBERS of people so angry that they resort to this kind of thing.

Even during the Clinton years, you didn't have websites full of "right wingers" planning out petty acts of vindictiveness simply because they believed someone else had a different opinion.  But it's more than just that, it is the left that tries to paint itself as the side of tolerance and diversity. But in that respect, I don't see that much tolerance or diversity, at least not in thought, by its idealogues.

I don't think that the behavior demonstrated in the article is typical. I want to make that clear. Most people are normal people (by definition). But I see much more anger and hatred from the left than I do from the right and for what seems to me to be very little reason. I saw hatred on the right during the Clinton administration but never to anywhere near the extremes I see here -- except by individual kooks, not entire communities.

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
You must be kidding, Brad. Talk radio exploded during the Clinton years, when Bush was elected, there was a sense of loss that there was no one to complain about so much. I don't see how you can say that the left has more hateful people than the right. Do you have numbers? Is there any data?
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
Actually there were a number of websites in the Clinton era that planned out acts of petty vindictiveness. There were also far more actual acts of vindictiveness than there are currently.

cheers
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Double post... somehow. Sorry.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top

Sherye Hanson: can you equate talk radio with the kind of stuff Brad is citing? As a Liberal you should be just as horrified with the kind of crap he is referencing, no, more so, because it is your side it is soiling. Instead you just try to say " I don't see how you can say that the left has more hateful people than the right."? If you can point out Conservative activities like those above, great, do so, but trying to equate it to talk radio goes a long way toward excusing it.

To me it looks like folks whose ethos doesn't find fertile ground, so they have to supplement the honest process with a bit of nefariousness.

"Actually there were a number of websites in the Clinton era that planned out acts of petty vindictiveness. There were also far more actual acts of vindictiveness than there are currently."

Examples?
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well... Liberals are in the middle

Facists on the right
Communists on the left
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
When I think of hate speech, I think of 'Fuck You Faggot', not a couple of youngish democrats talking smack about republicans on a democrat-based message board from the security of their own desktops.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
Examples?


Unfortunately most of them are no longer up, since they aren't relevant. But some people who had them:

The American Heritage Institute
Children First America
The Heartland Institute.

To name 3.

Cheers
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
jeblackstar: You wouldn't remember what they were doing do ya? Don't know much about children first america, but the other two don't seem like your 'civil disobedience' types at all. Not doubting you, just curious.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top

Feel free to show examples of right wing sites that plan to try to harm individuals of the opposite political persuassion.

These people aren't just talking smack. They are putting together plans to HARM other people based purely on their political philosphies. Not very "liberal" IMO.

Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Alright, so the left is intelligent enough to put up websites, and the right is stupid enough to meet together in redneck bars in Arkansas. So I'm ranting here, but what would you like me to say to that Brad? I mean honestly, there are rightwing groups in Oklahoma who speak vehemently about lynching democrats. I know, because I lived there. There are pamphlets and public access shows about how democrats, homosexuals, and jews are evil.

Come on Brad, if you think hate is limited to the left than you've lived in a shell.

Cheers
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
jeblackstar: Not cool equating conservatism with racism. Communists killed lots of Jews. I know highbrow Democrats, and their parties are quite, um, monotone?

Arkansas redneck bars? Hrm, I can't see Winston Churchill, Henry Kissinger, William F. Buckley, Steve Forbes, George Will, or pretty much anyone that would read National Review in an Arkansas redneck bar. Actually, aren't all of those full of Clinton Democrats? Most of the redneck bars around here in KY are...

The fact is, the molotov cocktail throwing segment of society have almost always been leftist. Think about the definition of Conservatism.:

"a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change"

Does that really describe people with a lot of need for civil disobedience? The gun-toting KKK members you describe aren't conservative, they are radical, libertarian in their hatred for any authoritarian government at all. You can't call people who want to annex Idaho into a aryan nation "conservative"
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
The fact is, the molotov cocktail throwing segment of society have almost always been leftist


Not the ones that are killing doctors in abortion clinics--come on, there are wack-jobs on both sides of the aisle...don't pretend otherwise.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
If you get to disown people from the conservative movement, people who self-identify with conservativism and who most people would think of as conservative as opposed to liberal, then we liberals should get to do the same.
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
I try not to judge any party by their more colorful members, unless they're respected by their party.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top

"then we liberals should get to do the same."

You'd have to decide what Liberals really are. At this point "Liberal" is being used to describe anything from anarchists to on-the-fence conservatives. Conservative values are pretty well defined. No one would call white supremacists out to overthrow the government or secede from the nation "conservative", not if they have a dictionary.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
No one would call white supremacists out to overthrow the government or secede from the nation "conservative", not if they have a dictionary


Brad's blog is talking about "the left", which you refer to as "liberals", but when someone makes a jump from "the right" to "conservatives", you take issue?

The conservative and liberal ideologies, in their true forms, are rarely practiced in real life. On a scale of global political parties, the US Democrat and Republican parties fall pretty close together pretty close to center. Conservative and Liberal ideologies are not limited to the US and can not be intertwined solely with American Democratic and Republican parties.

Labels are easy to use, but very rarely as accurate as we would like them to be. Hate isn't limited to either the left or the right, or the center for that matter. Ideology isn't static and it's not linear--not all conservatives hold the same position on every matter, nor do all Liberals.

If you don't make this a left v. right issue, the story still has a point--why would anyone think that it is acceptable to persecute another based on political belief--regardless of where on the spectrum they fall? In my view, that's the real story--doesn't matter if they are liberal, conservative, left, right, democrat or republican--it's the issue of persecution that's important.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Brad, if you can equate me with the tree huggers (no disrespect to hippies) and liberals who spout the kind of nonsense you quote at the top of your blog, then I can equate you with racists, rednecks, etc.

You can't be general about my side and then forbid me from doing the same. My generalities were meant to highlight yours.

Cheers
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Brad's blog is talking about "the left""
I think what his post is saying is that radicalism is much, much more accepted on the Left than the Right. I don't think the right embraces "civil disobedience" to the same extent as the left. Leftist liturature is steeped in it. I don't think anyone can say that white supremacists and Waco-style kooks get the same warm embrace from the Right as, say, Palestinian "rights organizations" or WTO demonstrators get on the Left.

Almost every violent protest or attack provokes some people on the left to say "Well, that's what you get...". As if the inevitable is somehow acceptable and you deserve it. We've heard that before and after 9/11. No doubt Israel will hear that a lot in the coming months. I think down deep the Left see it as both an end and a means when it serves their purposes.

From its birth, through the French Revolution, through Russian radicalism in the Victorian era through the October revolution, through radical movements of the 60's, to the militant environmental groups, to the anti-globalization movements now, the Left has embraced Radicalism as means to an end.

I don't think mainstream Liberals feel that way, but you have to see the historical ties and understand that Radicalism has had no problem with violent upheaval, and Conservatives have no appreciation for it. If "Liberals" are truly Liberal, they would do well to dissociate themselves from Radicalism, instead of winking at it.
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
You'd have to decide what Liberals really are. At this point "Liberal" is being used to describe anything from anarchists to on-the-fence conservatives. Conservative values are pretty well defined. No one would call white supremacists out to overthrow the government or secede from the nation "conservative", not if they have a dictionary.


The left-right political scale is not equivalent to the liberal-conservative political scale. While socialists, communists, and anarchists are firmly planted on the left, they are not liberals. Likewise, right wing fascists, fundamentalists, and militants are clearly not conservative, though situated firmly on the right. Liberalism is the theory of individualism, free markets, and the dispersion of power to the ends of greater equality. You cannot be a liberal and oppose the free market. Today's liberals borrow from socialist thinking a concern for social ends or results, believing that liberalism cannot survive if it remains stagnant and loses its idealistic drive. We believe that its structures must evolve and continue to limit the powers that emerge within society, be they governmental, corporate, or religious. However, we are not socialist, because we are willing to let the greatest part of society go untouched by government. Today's conservatives do not possess the same idealism and spirit, but seem to advocate the conservation of liberalism, or at least certain liberal structures, minus the 'unwanted' consequences. Whatever the case, if you are a conservative, you owe your beliefs to older liberals, while opposing newer ones. Your dislike of modern liberalism may be less theoretical, and more disapproving of certain things that liberals stand for or certain ways they conduct themselves, but in the most important things you will agree with the liberals and the liberals will agree with you (although it will never make the news). Right now, there is a broad misuse of the term liberal and a stigma against it. I think people need to be much more careful about how they use the term, and avoid broadly characterizing liberals as extremists of any sort, especially if they expect liberals not to label conservatives as fascists or racists.