I am hoping for the best in Iraq on Sunday. The Iraqis are a long suffering people who deserve a chance at freedom and happiness.

As a leftist, however, I am dismayed by how many of my fellow leftists have expressed to me privately that they hope the whole experiment in democracy fails miserably in Iraq. They say this because they hate Bush more than they care about the Iraqi people. And everytime such a friend expresses these ideas to me, I lose respect for them and for whatever it is we hold in common.

Unfortunately, no matter how well the Iraqi elections go, our media are determined to find a negative angle.

This post describes how The International Herald Tribune is whining that women are going to "be the big losers" in the Iraqi election:

http://ridingsun.blogspot.com/2005/01/iraqis-head-to-polls-women-hardest-hit.html

Bob;
They HOPE the elections fail? I could understand "expect" or "believe", but "hope" is despicable.

Speaking as a pretty hard-left, anti-Bush liberal who is friends with a lot of same, I don't personally know /anyone/ who wants the elections to fail, or anything comparable.

I don't buy it. This sounds more like the conservative caricature of a leftist than anyone to the right of Chomsky who actually draws breath.

Our thoughts, prayers and best wishes are with the people of Iraq this weekend.

Al-hamdu lillah

For peace, humanity, and victory over our own baser natures.

Bob

Leftism has mass murdered 174 Million people, and socialism = failure when it dont deliver mass death and the oppression of the iron boot.

The american right have been pushing freedom forward since Goldwater, Reagan, and the Democrat party of John Kennedy is long gone.

Its all about power, 174 Million Murdered for power.

The left supported the Veitcong, who murdered their own people at the directive of a 5% death quota.

We never lost on the battle field, but the media, and the left wanted the side guilty of crimes against humanity to win.

Now there are doing the same to our Iraq effort, the same damn thing, the only thing different is that we have alrternatives to the leftist media monopoly for information. so today, we know the reality is not what the leftist media tells us...

John Kerry, we now know, who called the criminal against humanity, who murdered his people by death quota "George Washington" and proven by capured Veitcong documents we know he co-ordinated with the paris delegation communists to extend the caputure of our POWs so that more could die from torture, and buy time for 2 years of stalls and aborts, so that the Commie Democrats could win a cut in funding so that the Guilty of Crimes agaist Humanity North could win, and mass murder and imprison the south, matching the deaths by murder of PolPot.

... common man... are we learning yet ?

This isnt intended to be harsh, i could go on for pages, but if your eyes are starting to open, i applaud your excape from the lefts blood stained matrix.

Catsy, unfortunately it's not too hard to find open expressions of hope on e.g. Democratic Underground and elsewhere in Indymedia.

I know that words are easy and the anonymity of the Internet allows people to say things more radically than they would live out. On the other hand, actions speak loudly in the real world -- and I have seen very few on the left other than, say, Christopher Hitchens, who seem to me to stand fundamentally for freedom for the Iraqi people. It saddens me to see that, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

Of course none of my friends would actually express this sad hope of theirs on an internet forum such as this. Like Cat they would deny that anyone who thinks like we think would ever wish for something so despicable as the violent overthrow of the hopes of an entire brave nation of people. In private among safe friends is another matter.

How can so many people that I care about, who are otherwise so compassionate and caring, be so cruel? The only explanation I can come up with is that political passion can make a person insane if it is not challenged by unyielding reality checks from time to time.

To my friends, the Iraqi people are not really people anymore, but objects within their political ideas. The only use these objects can be put to, is for demonstrating how wise and correct these ideas are.

I look forward to the election's conclusion. I pray for the safety of those who participate. Then the Iraqi people can put the final pieces in place that will allow them to achieve whatever they set out to do.

When we look back on this moment in 20, maybe even 30 years, we can see a singular moment in time when the Iraqi people took control of their own destiny.

I supported this war from the beginning, and never wanted to get in a debate about the reason. For me it was always about giving these people a choice. Even if it means choosing things that I as an American would not agree with.

My biggest fear all along is that America would not have the willpower to push through to this day.

Is this going to magically stop the violence? Absolutely not. But it is going to give the individuals of this country a power that they haven't had before.

Mike Norris

Bob

To my friends, the Iraqi people are not really people anymore, but objects within their political ideas. The only use these objects can be put to, is for demonstrating how wise and correct these ideas are.

A point ive tried to make many times, when the left pretends to care, its only a political calculation, "can we crwal over xxx dead bodies to advance our leftist goals?"

So is it not time to ask, "Do they relly care?" or are the objects of their concern only political tools.

We found mass graves of children in Iraq, the BBC reporter made a point to mention them found still clutching their toys.

What he was telling us, was they was herded to the bottom of a fresh ditch, shot, and covered where they fell, it was a grave of mass execution.

The left will dependably latch on to things far smaller than this, in fact utter trivial and silly and stupid things, such as rumsfeld using an autopen or how Cheney dressed for a polish winter.

But if victims are not usefull political tools to advance blood stained socialism or attack defenders and advocates of freedom, then those victims dont merit notice.

Its fake compassion, its a fraud, its a political calculation. there is no real soul there.

I would ask you to look further, its not only their compassion that is a fraud.

Not all on the left are intellectually dishonest -- nor is political leverage of trivial issues confined to the left side of the political sphere.

It does seem to be the case that the left side has exhausted the momentum, energy and credibility it had for several decades. The right side was in a similar place in the 60s and 70s, though, so humility is in order, I think. Will the currently constituted left party and its platforms thrive in the near future? Probably not. Will they be able to revitalize themselves about the time that the right side overstretches? Quite possibly.

Or maybe the sensible middle - those who are a little libertarian, the ordinary decent people who want neither to live in a social jungle nor to be led by Big Brother and have their lives managed by the Nanny State - will find a way to coalesce. I wonder if we won't see a shift from the right-left dichotomy to one along the libertarian - state power axis instead.

It's been my experience that most Lefties are shallow people to begin with. Many of the grassroots types are simpletons who are hard to reason with about ordinary problems, anything. They often critisize something or someone which is obviously the opposit of their cretique. It's shows their subconscious low self-esteem coming to the surface in the form of projecting those feelings to others to make THEM feel better.

So it is no wonder that they are easily manipulated and brainwashed by smarter, not wiser, Lefties. Bashing those who are smarter, wiser, and better educated is their way of leveling the playing field. If their comments get mentioned in the press it galvonizes their confidence that they are right. A sense of false importance is better than no importance at all.

"I will stand in front of the box and put my heart in it."

That quote from Mohammed on Iraq the Model will live in history. It has touched millions of hearts, all cheering for their success.

I posted on ItM today that in 10 or 15 years there should be a monument, a block of solid marble, with those words inscribed on it. The monument should be where the statue of Saddam once stood in the center of Baghdad, surrounded by flowers in colors representing peace. It will be the Mecca of Democracy in the Middle East.

It's been my experience that most Rightists are shallow people to begin with. Many of the religious types are simpletons who are hard to reason with about ordinary problems, anything. They often critisize something or someone which is obviously the opposit of their cretique. It's shows their subconscious low self-esteem coming to the surface in the form of projecting those feelings to others to make THEM feel better.

So it is no wonder that they are easily manipulated and brainwashed by smarter, not wiser, Rovians. Bashing those who are smarter, wiser, and better educated is their way of leveling the playing field. If their comments get mentioned in the press it galvonizes their confidence that they are right. A sense of false importance is better than no importance at all.

Right after Pat Tillman, the NFL player turned Army Ranger, was killed in Afghanistan I started to read screeds about "leftist professors" who were happy the "brainwashed idiot" was killed.
These never rang very true, though I am sure you could find some unreconstructed type in Berkeley who would believe it. But it is so unrepresentative of the left. Then I began to realize it was all part of the Fox plan. You know of it... talking heads on Fox News shouting about marriage being under attack, or christmas being under attack. (Wait a sec, how can anyone harm a marriage except one person or the other? It makes no sense. But if you shout long and hard enough.) So the toiling midgets of the right's culture war head into action with each new development.
Right now we are on the eve of a historic election in the wounded and unhappy land of Iraq. The election is a needed and critical first step. It may well fail, for myriad reasons. But all humane people wish the Iraqis well.
So, lil' Bushian midgets, ignore your marching orders to spread baseless words about "leftists who hope the experiment fails."
Rise above your muck raking.
Write something positve. And true.

"I wonder if we won't see a shift from the right-left dichotomy to one along the libertarian - state power axis instead."

I've been wondering this for years.

Freemind, I've seen many examples of all the leftist actions you say are false. I hope they are the minority. The more you guys clean up your extremists, the more that will be the case.

I will stand in front of the box to put my heart in it.

Poor man. He's throwing away his heart.
Deluded.

Robin

Will freedom go out of style ?

The left do not accept even the idea that some things are beyond the opinion of the moment, that objective truth exists, they downgrade fact to opinion.

The left mass murdered by the millions for utopia.

Since when has the republican party ever depated from the idea that the indevidual has rights beyond the reach of the demands of a majority ?

Its a fundamental principle that seperates the American right and left.

There was a time when the Democrats carried the torch of freedom also, remember John Kennedy?

Perhaps its a clue, if the Communists are voting with you, something is wrong.

You, yourself, spoke of a break with old friends over issues of principle, with those who could not rise above their hatred, who was part of a collective whos every intent is to undermine.

What is the media doing, what is the media doing here?

So what? The wire services have reported it and it must be true. The last posts have coincidentally dealt with Orwell's description of how totalitarianisms manufacture a media-generated alternative reality to suit their ends. In 1984 real events are never reported by the Ministry of Truth; false events are manufactured out of whole cloth.

Im saying its pervasive, im saying its evil, im saying we have been at the brunt of it for decades.

What say you, will freedom go out of style ?

Robin, this is about principle, not party, its a contest of ideas, its a battle between freedom and marxist slavery ever bit as evil as the chattle slavery that came before, and with as much merit as the battle to throw off the rule of a king that gave this country its birth.

Socialism, is the opposite of freedom, and the democrats once opposed it, now, today, socialist planks infect the platform and hold half the venue.

The leftist Prime ministers and other such leftists that embrace Castro and other blood stained leftist thugs are proof enough that the left have NOTHING in common with us. NOTHING.

How is it possible that John Kerry, who embraced the Veitcong, crimes agaist humanity Vietcong, who murdered their own people with a 5% death quota, perhaps that what Earned such praise from kerry that he was called "george washington" and slimed our troops with FAKE charges of the worst kind and helped them spread their holocaust and iron boot south while more of out POWs died of torture.

the left deserve the badge of evil, they have earned it, they refuse to repudiate it, they have not changed

They elected this creature in the primaries, if there was any principles of decency remaining in the democrat party, this could not have happened.

........

Or maybe the sensible middle - those who are a little libertarian, the ordinary decent people who want neither to live in a social jungle nor to be led by Big Brother and have their lives managed by the Nanny State - will find a way to coalesce. I wonder if we won't see a shift from the right-left dichotomy to one along the libertarian - state power axis instead.

I would LOVE the debate to move over between the Right and the Libertarians, they are honest brokers of ideas, they say flatly, and directly what they intend and why without deceit (unlike the left)

At least your debate perticipant would not be advocating re-warmed marxist filth that beggared whole continents murdered by the 100s of millions and suffered billions to live in misery under the iron boot.

The libertarians have more in common with the Right than they have differences, (more than a few republicans are Larry Elder Republicans)

The debate would be so much more enjoyable, if only if only, that would be a good day indeed.

Jon, you've shown up just in time to be an example of one of those leftists that freemind thinks doesn't exist. More for Freemind: So how marginalized are the extremists again?

More.

Here is the "more" from Yehudit's post above:

In response to my post featuring a photo of a smiling Iraqi woman celebrating her country’s first real democratic election, an anonymous LGF admirer emailed photos of 1) a dead or wounded US soldier, and 2) the highly suspect, possibly staged “car bomb” we reported earlier today.
And I received some other hate mail as well, too tedious to detail.
Isn’t it interesting, that a photo of a young woman smiling with honest hope for her country’s future would evoke such nihilistic hatred? Where are these peoples’ souls?

Note the anonymous nature of a communication type, email, already rather anonymous. There are plenty of people who yell and curse and flip people off driving who would never do that in person. Likewise, even if the post really did come from a person wishing ill to Iraq, it is likely just venting. Or sometime trying to get your goat. Like Raymond!
Another thought is bloggers may be over represented by people sensitive to such slights, who may even seek them out. To more feel the outrage.
I went to a counter inaugeration protest Jan 20th. Not a single hurtful sign speech or phrase wishing ill upon our fighting troops or Iraqis to be seen or heard.
Now, when I was in the enlisted ranks of our military I heard more "nigger" from the mouths of white soldiers than the rest of my life put together.
If I felt like it I could post angry screeds on a nice leftist blog raging at the racism still existing in our society. And I would have my own experience to back up my outrage. I could say to a doubter, no, I heard it, with my own ears.
But I don't take from my experience that our military is full of racists. Just that you find bad apples anywhere. And it doesn't reflect upon soldiers who would never use such a hurtful word.

It may be an exercise in futility to debate Raymond, but I'll give it a go.

'Will freedom go out of style?': It may in GOP America. Consider the creeping erosion of our privacy, all in the name of security. Chicago is erecting cameras to watch citizens, all the time.Ashcroft: People better watch what they say. Indeed!

'The left mass murdered by the millions for utopia.'
And the right for business.

'Since when has the republican party ever departed from the idea that the individual has rights beyond the reach of the demands of a majority?'
Raymond, quit throwing these softballs. Equal rights for gays. End the drug war. The GOP line of gays and drugs are ongoing assaults upon our principles of freedom and equality.

'Its a fundamental principle that seperates the American right and left.'
Agreed. Conservatives have resisted every advance of liberty in our history. From ending slavery to women's sufferage to ending Jim Crow to Stonewall Cconservatives have stood astride history and yelled stop. And they have lost every time. Liberty, and liberalism, are on the march. We win every time. The shouts of Fox news commentators, of Raymonds, and of their brethren around the world who look at freedom and see decadent western licentousness are the shouts of the losers.
Notice how the critique of the modern west by the religous right in this country mirrors the wahhabist critique? Or for that matter Bin Laden's? All see the rights of minorities, of women, of gays, as an insult to their small worlds. All hate sexuality, and sexy women. All have shame and fear and control running through their world views like veins of coal.

Freemind, you might be more credible if you could give specific examples to back up your claims. For instance, Stalin killed 30 million Ukrainians, some of them my relatives. The equivalent on the right, killed by/for business, was ???

Re: slavery, you conveniently forget that it was the Republican Abraham Lincoln who successfully fought the Civil War and freed the slaves. Neither he nor others of his time were without prejudice, but it was the Jim Crow Democrats in the south who resisted equality for Blacks for decades.

This is not a defense of the Right, who have their own sins behind them. It is a strong suggestion that we all put aside easy rhetoric and deal with specifics.

Here's a specific backing up my freedom / state power dichotomy (in place of right / left): go read Roger Simon's live blogging of the elections in Iraq. Simon's a prizewinning screenwriter in Hollywood and a novelist -- and also a self-described life time leftist who supportes the liberation of Iraq:

9:21 - I know it sounds corny, but those of us in the blogosphere--readers, writers, commenters--who supported our government's actions in Iraq and suffered the opprobrium of friends and family, were called warmongers and chickenhawks, this is a time to celebrate. This is what we wer fighting for in the war of opinion. It's not much, especially compared to our brave troops, but it something.

Raymond, please note this principled person on the left. Or more precisely - and more usefully, Simon is a good example suggesting the important political division now is between those who celebrate the freedom and worth of the individual vs. those who think in collectives and wish to use the state to enforce their ideas (whether on the left or the right).

'Will freedom go out of style?': It may in GOP America. Consider the creeping erosion of our privacy, all in the name of security. Chicago is erecting cameras to watch citizens, all the time.

RB:
Stalin killed millions. So did Hitler. Facism is the pro business mass movement. Check out Eric Hoeffer's The True Believer. The parallels between all mass movements, leftist, rightest, religious, are fascinating.
One realizes it is the Western individualist humanist that stands apart from the others.
Yes Lincoln was Republican. You are aware, of course, that the two main parties have switched positions relative to each other. The swap completed when LBJ knowingly gave up the south for his civil rights legislation.
And yes, it would be a great idea to give up the anti-equal-rights-for-gays people too.
TW: Overlying our usual main party dichotomies is the law and order crowd, who represent perhaps the biggest domestic threat to our values. The law and order folks are largely, though as you point out not only, conservative. And, it is the Feds who are funding this panopticon experiment in Chicago.

Catsy said above that she doesn't know of any leftists who want the elections to fail. Catsy, you might want to check out entries at the Democratic Undergrownd such as these:

The Iraq vote is making me sick this morning

All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how "freedom" has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called "voters" and barely mentioned the resistance movements at all. Where are the freedom fighters today? Are their voices silenced because some American puppets cast a few ballots?

I can't believe the Iraqis are buying into this "democracy" bullshit. They have to know that the Americans don't want them to have power, because they know that Bush is in this for the oil, and now that he finally has it he's not going to let it go. This election is a charade. The fact is that the Iraqis have suffered during the past two years more than any people on earth at the hands of the American gestapo. Maybe they're afraid and felt they had to vote. That's the only way I can explain it to myself.

OR--I just thought of this--maybe they're smiling because they're using the Americans own game to defeat them. They're voting in candidates who they know will widen the resistance, take the fight to the streets, and finally drive the occupying forces out of their country. Perhaps they're smiling because--right under the American's noses--they're planting the seeds of a bigger and more effective resistance movement. Wouldn't that be fitting? Use *'s own tools against them?

We can only pray that this is the case. Becuase if it's not--and if the Iraq vote is seen as a success that spread "freedom"--the world is screwed

RB:
There's a chance the "liberals" who are so raising your ire are Fox news / dittohead plants. Even if not, they are not worth your emotional involvement. So there are fools out there. Old news.
This thread has illustrated a new development in the culture wars. The right is shouting, very loudly, about awful liberals who want the Iraqi vote to fail, who think Pat Tillman was a fool, etc... See how terrible the liberals are! Raymond takes this furthest with his rants.
Yet it is the conservatives who are actively insulting our principles in the USA today. Discrimination against gays and the drug war are harming our citizens right now, this second.
Imagine for a second if drug war tactics were deployed against gun owners. Imagine if christians were treated like gays are today. Kind of interesting to put the ball on the other foot.
Compared to this the opinions of some looney "leftists" are chump change.

Yes, it's possible that the loony fringe on DU, or Rantburg, are plants. OTOH, I've met people with such opinions in person.

Imagine for a second if drug war tactics were deployed against gun owners. Imagine if christians were treated like gays are today. Kind of interesting to put the ball on the other foot

Well, many Christians feel they ARE treated like pariahs and discriminated against by the coastal elites. And as far as gun owners go, while I hear you about some abuses in the drug war, well .... I just went through a months long process in NY to get a pistol permit required for me to legally TOUCH my own gun -- and to transport it only to target practice under limited circumstances. So there is a case to be made that the ball has already been shared.

More generally, freemind, I'm not sure if you were around when this was discussed earlier, but it's a mistake to assume I'm a conservative. I've been a registered Democrat for 30 years now.

Actually, let me make that stronger: many Christians feel the courts have been used to prevent them from openly practicing their religion and from raising their children in it at the community level.

That is, arguable, a direct parallel to, say, the gay marriage issue.

"Bashing those who are smarter, wiser, and better educated is their way of leveling the playing field. If their comments get mentioned in the press it galvonizes their confidence that they are right."

At least I can spell galvanize.

Andrew J. Lazarus will be playing the role of Gary Farber today.

RB:
There really is no comparison between how christians and gays are treated in this country. Being a christian does not cause your rights to be restricted. Being gay does.
Note your wording. Red state christians "feel" they are "treated like pariahs" by blue state elites. Ok, that is a problem. Blue state elites should follow the golden rule and treat christians with the respect they themselves would like to receive.
Gay people ARE denied equal protection of law in the US. They are denied the right to marry, and in many states to adopt. They are denied the right to serve in the nation's armed forces. Stop an imagine if christians labored under such bigotry.
I sympathize with the gun restrictions you experienced. The 2nd amendment is very important. But! No comparison with the drug war. Free people are arrested, or killed, because of the choice of intoxicant they make.
There is no justification at all in punishing free people for how they like to use intoxicants. At a minimum it is a human right to get intoxicated in your own home.

Freemind

Wrong on all counts

What in particular, was "right wing" about the nazis or facists ?

Both were socialists

Facism, takes its name from the roman facis, a bundle of sticks around an axe.

Benito had leftist parents, he was a leftist radical, he published in two socialist newspapers, one of them his own, and came to power thru the Italian socialist party.

The German Workers' Party name was changed by Hitler to include the term National Socialist. Thus the full name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) called for short, Nazi. By the end of 1920 it had about three thousand members.

The intellectual relations between the teachings of Adolf Hitler and those of Marx and his professed followers among Hitler's contemporaries give much insight, In his autobiography, and in recorded conversations with intimates among his own followers, Hitler said such things as,

"I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit" [..] "the whole of National Socialism is based on Marx"

and that without racist commitments his own political movement

"would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground."

Hitler was a socialist

"We are socialists because we see in socialism the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state."

"We are a workers' party because we are on the side of labor and against finance."

"As socialists we are opponents of the Jews because we see in the Hebrews the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation's goods." Joseph Goebbels, 1932

Similar to the flatly evil race baiting class warfare in use today by the same type of people. For leftists, in their clamor for power over the rest of us, nothing is too low, anything goes, the ends justify the means.

In the European century that began in the 1840s, from Engels article of 1849 down to the death of Hitler, everyone who advocated genocide called himself a socialist and no conservative, anarchist or independent did anything of the kind.

This is not confined to the extermination only of races or of ethnic groups, but also the liquidation of such other complete human categories as "enemies of the people" and "the Kulaks as a class."

Before World War I, some socialists, such as the novelist Jack London and the psychologist Havelock Ellis, saw socialism as leading both fortunately and necessarily to the triumph of the white races over the black and the brown.

Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the infamous Auschwitz death camp, recalled in his memoirs that even at the height of the Nazi-Soviet war of 1941-45, his colleagues had respected the socialist example of an exterminatory program based on forced labor.

It was not just the idea of genocide that the Nazis owed to Marx and the Marxists, but its detailed practice too, not excluding camps and gas chambers.

In Vietnam

The class of landlords was targeted. When it was discovered that this class did not exist in any meaningful sense, the communists redefined "landlord" to mean anyone with an above average income (say, an extra cow), or anyone who once upon a time had an above average income, or anyone whose ancestors had had an above average income. The lower class peasants were instructed to choose which of their fellow villagers fell into this category, and kill them. The central government laid down a death quota- 5 percent of the population of each village were to be killed.

in Cambodia

The refugees were each assigned a destination village. The villages were turned into collective farms- the infamous "killing fields." Once assigned to a village, you were not allowed to leave.

Within the villages there was no individual existence. One slept in communal barracks, ate in communal mess halls, worked together in the fields from six in the morning until eight at night. Laughter and crying were forbidden. People were not allowed to have names.

One could not associate with others. One could not have friends. There was no mail, no telegrams, no newspapers or radio. One could not communicate beyond one's village.

There were no doctors, no medicine, no books, no private property of any sort. There was no sexual freedom. There was no music. There was no schooling.

Family life was forbidden. One could not show affection towards one's loved ones. A mother who hugged her own child could see the child shot for it.

Leftist attack on the familly has been a constant thruout its entire history, its an intergal part of "Bring it all down man"

Those that dont know that dont know the left.

Stalin also mass murdered by death quota, there was the same attack on the family.

What made this secular religion so utterly lethal was its seizure of all the states instruments of force and coercion and their immediate use to destroy or control all independent sources of power, such as the church, the professions, private businesses, schools, and, of course, the family.

Only the left do these types of things, leftism stands alone as the most evil of all evils that has ever inflicted planet earth.

Gun control is a LEFTIST outrage, always has been still is now.

Chicago is controled by what party ?

If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'

And only the left would do something like that, working as a whore is now mandantory ?

I also have a dim view of the leftist attack on marrage, a 6000+ year old instutution that is all about bringing up children and NO Other Reason.

With the left, Orwell lives large, the inversion of values morality even the values of life over death.

Todays leftist creatures have Nothing in common with me. nothing.

Raymond:
I enjoyed your trip through history. It is easy to find some pro marxist quotes from Hitler. Hell, he was allied briefly with the USSR. But Facism has always had a pro business bend. The plutocrats in Nazi Germany did very well, and were not discomfited but for Germany's defeat.
You repeat the Foxian canard; "attack on marriage".
How do gay people marrying attack anyones marriage? They already live together. Have you felt your marriage weaken as a result? Gay people marry in countries more principled and less fearful than ours. Have your friends divorced as a result? Men take many wives in Muslim countries. Have you seen marriages here break up as a result?
The whole idea of an "attack on marriage" is absurd. No harm can come to a marriage except that which the partners inflict upon each other.

Freemind

again, wrong on all counts.

"It is easy to find some pro marxist quotes from Hitler."

As one would expect from a man and a movement that called themselves socialists. What is hard is arguning the reverse, its a denial of reality and rewrite of history.

"Hell, he was allied briefly with the USSR."

As was the United States.!! shortly thereafter. And this tells us ... ? bzzzt, wrong again.

"But Facism has always had a pro business bend."

Facism, named after the roman facis, was benito's word, his logo, for his form of socialism, a man whose entire history was socialist radical.

"The plutocrats in Nazi Germany did very well,"

As did the corrupt amoral entagled with government cretins who took oil for food money to sell french missles to Iraq.

So what is rightist in germany is leftist in Sweden France and other "Third Way" leftist creations ?

bzzzt, wrong again, the admission by technocrat leftist that pure socialism dont work (communism) and this new "third way" form of it deserves no more merit than its older forms, it all springs from the same evil idology.

"You repeat the Foxian canard; "attack on marriage"."

For good reason, its aim is to undermine and devalue, and its the type of thing that gives rise to the forced prostitution i pointed at above, where the woman must whore or she loses her benifits, this is the same twisted evil leftism, one and the same, where the amoral is declared moral backed by govt force, forced acceptance, and the Leftist European speach codes that outlaw speaking against it all.

"How do gay people marrying attack anyones marriage?"

The reason for marrage is procreation and raising children. As opposed to leftism where children become wards of the state, placed at the direction of the state. indoctrinated at the direction of the state.

"The whole idea of an "attack on marriage" is absurd."

An attack on marrage is exactly what it is, to undermine the very reason for its existence.

Raymond, please go study some of the history of the rise of the Third Reich; Hitler was funded past the beer hall stage by German industrialists who were panicked about a Socialist revolution in Germany.

"The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich" is a good overview; I'll check my bookshelves and suggest some more if you're interested.

A.L.

To come eventually, Forced Islam

I could point at examples all over Europe, and even leftist Canada where Sharia Law courts have been given authority.

Leftism = Surrender and Slavery

welcome to Eurabia

When the last leftist is having his head sliced off, long after his soft leftist utopia is gone, he will still assuage the loss of his head by noting he was so superiorly multicultural.

Cultural Marxism has gutted the spirt out of the people under its rule, they can no longer defend or stand up for themselves, the falling birth rate is only a weak indicator of the destruction of sprit, and a mans own sense of value of himself, and the loss of the hope that was once invested in children.

AL

Im fully aware of the "lesser of evils" that played a part in german politics at the wane of the Weimar republic.

And so what does this tell you about sharing planks and venue with leftist radicals ?

The democratic party is the party of leftist poison, it matters not that there might exist a few more acceptable creatures, the body is poisoned, toxic.

And indoctrinare disputes beween leftist factions is the halmark of leftist politics that goes all the way back to the trotskys vs the stalinists, and marches thru every leftist revolution that has ever been.

The largest leftist faction conflageration was in China during the Cultural revolution.

The communist party was split between those who supported Maos desire to continue the glorious communist revolution and those who were more pragmatic, the so called "capitalist roaders."

No one could be neutral in the bloody conflict for power between these two groups. Military units fought each other, even with cannon and tanks; students waged pitched battles with machine guns and grenades given them by military sympathizers. The victors in one battle or another would then systematically purge the opposition, subjecting them to torture and mass execution. How many died in this internal conflagration cannot be counted.

In this struggle, Mao and his supporters could trust no intellectual or scientist of any sort, especially in the governing of any organization. For this reason it was customary in these years to put fanatical communist radicals, regardless of their lack of experience or knowledge of their job, in charge of universities, schools, scientific institutes, hospitals, and intellectual associations of one sort or another.

This same thing is happening under Hugo Chavez !!!!

It recalls the memory of Communist Hazel O Leary put in charge of the DOE.

Even Ted Turner, at the top of his game a leftist wackjob, is the type that supported Hitler. and he is not alone in America, and his kind was hardly rare in Germany.

Your examples mean nothing, and i would find the sources suspect if he was telling history from the dishonesty of the leftist mindset.

Instead, lets look past the fake history at the men themselves, what they said, what they did.

Leftist purges of the "impure" is nothing new, assasinations, and the visuts by the black booted at night are the hallmark of leftist politics once they are firmly in power.

Look who was the targets in Germanys nights of the long knives, the aristocrats and all those industrialist opposed to hitler.

Hilter and Mousulini was socialists, called themselves socialists and like all the others push forward their claim that their own particular formulas of socialism was the correct one.

The most intense form of this we saw in Cambodia, and today, North Korea, where even a drunken slip of a high ranking party member lands your whole family in the communal labor death camp.

To foist forward the indoctrinare disputes among fellow leftists and claim one or the other isnt leftist is a fraud and a lie.

the Leftist power struggle is marked indelible by that very thing, and its the mechanism by where the most ruthless and inhuman are almost always the faction that ends up in power.

With Horiffic results that come fast or slow, but arrive eventually.

Forced whores, by order of that state, Germany has told that woman she is a whore, or she loses benifts. thats the leftist mindset

And thats only an example, a small example of the leftist outrage, the darkness falling over Europe.

What say you ?

Robin

Mr Simon is a liberal, not a leftist.

As far as I can determine, You and AL are Liberals, not leftists.

America itself, was founded with a new idea of Liberal Republican Democracy.

And an American Conservative is conservative of just that. we dont look back to the days of the King we threw off.

Elected to the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, Jefferson was appointed on June 11, 1776, to head a committee of five in preparing the Declaration of Independence. He was its primary author, although his initial draft was amended after consultation with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and altered both stylistically and substantively by Congress. Jefferson's reference to the voluntary allegiance of colonists to the crown was struck; also deleted was a clause that censured the monarchy for imposing slavery upon America.

Jefferson writing in opposition to slavery? say it aint so! he was a slave owner right! how does this jive with leftist dogma?

The next founder to argue agaisnt slavery, and the first on the floor of the new congress, was Ben Franklin.

The American principles of freedom was finally vindicated when they came to be applied universally to everyone.

Republicans opposed slavery, and opposed "special rights" for the same core princpled reason.

Before Leftism, Conservatives and Liberals had most in common, they shared the american ideas of freedom, and shared values that bound us as one people,

And in advocating the abolishment of slavery, it was the Republicans that was the liberals.

We still are, Classical Liberals are we, and conservatives of the Classical Liberalism of the ideas of freedom of those that founded America.

To the American idea of freedom, leftism is bizare and alien, from the level of taxation to the nanny state, the restrictions on guns, and the mountain of regulation that are the product of social-ist engineering.

The democrat party is now the marxocrat party, and from the mountain of 174 Million helpless they murdered, to the way they are murdering the soul and morality of the Europian man (that give you the best idea of what they intend for us as well) how you can share venue with such evil creatures is beyond ability.

In my view. Liberalim, as known today, is poisoned with Cultural and Fiscal Marxism.

The progressive income tax itself comes right out of the communist manifesto, its bizare and alien to the american idea, its class warefare written into law, and its toxic poison to the American idea of liberty.

the economist Heyak wrote that Liberalism would devolve into communism.

If as a "Liberal" you cannot be "Conservative" of Anything, then Heyak was right.

So Robin, are you ready to be told by the nanny state, that unless you become a whore, you will lose your benifits ?

In other words, how far down will we slide before the "Liberals" decide that at least some things are worth conserving ?

Raymond:
Your level of arguement is low. Rather than reply to the obvious point about the success of industrialists in Nazi Germany you repeat your bundle of sticks bit.
Night of the Long Knives; Hitler wiped out his competition. The Brown Shirts were not industrialists. They were street fighters not under his control.
And... you have not said how gay people marrying in any way affects other marriages. You take about marriage being devalued. How? We're talking letting more people get married. How does that undervalue the marriage of others?
You take about marriage being procreation and raising children. Gay people can and do raise children. Do you consider barren straight marriages, via biology or choice, to be false? Do you hurl invective at the Dole's, perhaps the most prominent couple without kids? Are they hurting marriage?

Freemind, your assertion that anyone to the right of a bolshevic or a red khimer isnt a leftist is absurd, that capitalists thru all of history have not supported leftist politicians is false and absurd.

"Rather than reply to the obvious point about the success of industrialists in Nazi Germany you repeat your bundle of sticks bit."

I doubt the non-nazi bussiness owners that had everything taken from them, with many joining the jews in mass graves had "success" in mind when they met their fate.

And i watch you skip over the objective truth that you cannot refute about Benito as well, his parents was socialists, his entire adult life was as a socialist, he published two socialist newspapers, one of them entirly his, and came to power thru the Italian socialist party.

The facis was Mousulini's Italian stamp, his logo and name for his own flavor of socialism.

The "Third Way" flavor of socialism of facist Italy and national socialist Germany is fully in power in Sweden, Germany, France, and Tony Blairs "Third Way" labor party (to a lesser extent, since the Thatcher years had reversed lots of it)

And Marrage is about pro-cretion and raising Children, remove that and the very reason it ever existed at all is gone, and is replaced by some bizzare purverted blessing by the state of who you shack up and have sex with.

This is an attack on the foundation of marrage itself.

And kids placed with gay couples ? this ignores the needs of the kids, to feed the vanity of those that are not a good example for kids, the only time this should ever come to pass is in those cases where one of the couple was the pre-existing natural parent, where the idea of the govt steping in, in itself, is perverse.

Raymond.
You keep repeating marriage is under attack, but don't say how. So again, how has any marriage you know of been hurt by gay marriages north of the border.
Comment on couples without kids. Or, those who can't have them.
Check out The True Believer, by Eric Hoeffer. He points out the similarities between all mass movements, facism, communism, christianity, islam, etc... All are really the same.
Only the Western individualist stands against them all.