Like I told curry boy this morning, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Will you?
Also, I have defended Muslims on this very board before, so your memory is flawed, to begin with. Among other things, I strive to keep my sanity in this here political maelstrom. I will, however, not shy away from punching back, either.
But even if what you say is true, you've ignored all the demonization and hatred of Trump supporters, conservatives, Christians, gun owners, pro-lifers, and conservatives belonging to the demographic that Democrats claim to "own."
That’s kind of funny. The Republicans demonize leftist Christians because they ”own” the Evangelicalls. They demonize teachers. They demonize gun owners who want common sense gun laws, parents of children killed in school shootings (rightist Alex Jones called them crisis actors) who want some reform on our nation’s gun laws, women who become pregnant as a result of rape and don’t want the pregnancy (it’s just an “inconvenience”), Republicans who don’t support Trump (how many have quit, been primaried, smeared and labeled RINO soley for not marching lockstep in support of Trump?
I also note your lack of an opinion either way on Biden's speech last night. I'm sure you have nothing but high praise. I only see a "but you too!" card on the table. If you were a competent member of society you would be wanting to seek harmony with your fellow man, not this. But since the die is cast, we have little choice but to play the game your side started, and I will play to win.
Oh please. Typical rightist victim mentality: he started it! Own your own actions here instead of constantly the other.
And the bonded line? Look on the mirror. WHO decided compromise is a dirty word? You can’t compromise with the “enemy” because that is what the right has labeled the left when they started using the language of war in politics.
The Wayback Machine: 1979 and on…
When Gingrich entered Congress in 1979, the Georgia Republican rejected bipartisanship and "turned national politics and congressional politics into team sport," Coppins says.
While in Congress, Coppins says Gingrich treated politics as a "zero-sum" endeavor — and he wasn't above resorting to name-calling, conspiracy theories and strategic obstruction in order come out on top: "He was not there to work in the committee structure and deal with constituent services. He was there to foment revolution and declare war."
Though Gingrich left Congress 1999, his aggressive tactics have had a lasting impact. In his Atlantic article, "The Man Who Broke Politics," Coppins writes about how the former speaker helped pave the way for Donald Trump's election.
…If you look at the way that [Gingrich] gained power in the first place, he did it very deliberately and methodically by undermining the institution of Congress itself from within, by kind of blowing up the bipartisan coalitions that had existed for a long time in Washington and then using the kind of populist anger at the gridlock in Congress to then take power.
This set the stage for what we are seeing. And Biden? He is naively thinking compromise and negotiation in politic is still possible. And maybe, it is. He was able to chip away a little at the stone fortress Gingrich built and pass a few bills with bipartisan support.
A “competent “ citizen, to use your words values cooperation over conflict, values bipartisanship and compromise as a value if it gets things accomplished and they get at least some of what they want. A “competent” citizen respects our institutions from president on down and doesn’t seek to destroy through scorched earth politics, rhetoric and action.
Examples of how a “competent” citizen might view issues where there are conflicting rights involved:
Abortion:
Extreme right: ban all abortion from conception on unless mother’s life is in a medical emergency. (Republicans have passed laws to that effect and a minority doesn’t even want the mothers life to be a factor).
Extreme left: Abortion should be legal in all cases with no restrictions.
Where bipartisan cooperation could occur: Completely legal in all cases with no obstructions to 16 weeks ( long enough to make a decision, raise money, but before fetal viability). After that, illegal except when the mother’s health or life is at stake or severe fetal abnormalities.
What would a competent citizen do?
Another case. Transgender issues. Both the left and the right have blown this up when in reality it involves a tiny minority of largely persecuted people and some seemingly entrenched positions.
The Far Left: People AND children should be allowed to identify however they please and be accepted for it. Transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports and accepted as women in that regard.
The Far Right: Transgender people should be identified solely by their sex at birth. Gender affirming treatment for adults should be banned. Gender affirming treatment for youth should be banned (even though any kind of surgical intervention is not legal 18, the Republicans are dangling it as red meat for their base).
The “competent” citizen? Medical decisions should be made between the individual, tbe parents (in cases of a minor) and their doctors based on the established medical consensus at time, NOT politicians.
The “competent“ citizen? A person who has gone through puberty as a male is physically different than a biological woman, and that can’t be fully erased. The one area where that matters is woman’s sports. No to that.
It’s not that hard to be a “competent” citizen unless you are a follower of an ideology that sees the other side as an enemy to be vanquished at all costs, rather than an opponent and you can thank Newt Gingrich for that.
Every right-wing authoritarian movement has one thing in common: a brutal clampdown on any persons or groups who promote equality.
psmag.com
Even by those standards, though, the rhetoric on the right over recent decades is disturbing. Right-wing pundits have joked about murdering people on the left for years. In the 1990s, talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh quipped, "I tell people: 'Don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus—living fossils—so we will never forget what these people stood for.'" His words were echoed recently by the neo-Nazi Chris Cantwell, who ranted in a Gab post that leftists should face "complete and total destruction." Memes and jokes about "free helicopter rides" for leftists like Bernie Sanders have become common on the right as well. This is a reference to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who murdered some of his left-wing opponents by throwing them from helicopters.
I have one message for the Democratic party:
Don't make enemies of kind people. Their wrath is far more ruthless and unforgiving than the evilest man alive.
Look in the mirror.
