Top 10 Lies about Liberals

Bridgethought of the Day: Don't believe everything you hear. Just use it to figure out what's really going on.

From Acid Ann Coulter 45 to that guy who sadly for the Irish has an Irish name, but whom I don't want to mention on a page that has the Declaration of Independence on it, lots of "conservatives" or Bush apologists have put out considerable time and effort in trying to make the word "Liberal" synonymous with "Satan", but without, of course, naming names. Failing that, the next best thing involves the word "soft". The lies are voluminous, but these are my picks for the Top Ten.

10. Liberals destroy American culture and traditions.

A lie of convenience - yesterday, it was liberals who were "Hollywood". Unless, "Hollywood" is part of American culture, in which case liberals threaten Jennifer Anniston, or to be more "conservative", reruns of Katherine Hepburn. Or maybe because liberals don't build enough walls and sectarian divisions, encourage that dreaded assimilation. So we dilute the WASP pool, which is what, to some, America is all about. Are they afraid they'll go the way of the Indians? Yes! Let's bring back true American culture and traditions - starting with power to the Sioux.

Or is immigration the threat? So conservatives give all the favors and tax breaks to Big Business, who celebrate by hiring cheap foreign and immigrant labor so they can increase their profits even more, and then they can blame liberals for not wanting to tax and spend more on prisons and walls to lock everybody up - or out. Is that an American "tradition"?

9. Liberals have no backbone - don't stand for anything - they're "soft" on principles.

Another lie of convenience - yesterday, they were rabid unionists, bleeding hearts, women's libbers, integrationists and equal opportunists, and anti-war weenies. But now that people began to actually value standing for workers, the poor and oppressed, women, minorities, and peace, suddenly this no longer works, so they "re-define" what "backbone" means, and reclassify liberals as invertebrates. Watch your back, folks, it's a whole 'nother phylum!

"Backbone" now means "rigor mortis" of the conscience. The human conscience is redefinied as a coelenterate. Hello, "strong", "principled" torture, war-mongering and lying. Goodbye, "weak", "waffling" peace, human rights, and honesty.

8. Liberals promote World Government.

This is where they bring in the Conspiracy Theorists and fringe groups. It's designed to loosely match the allegation that Muslims gather to the rallying cry "Bring Back the Caliphate!" "You see? They want to dilute us to be ruled by them."

So please explain Henry Kissinger, Exxon Oil, and other multinational corporations. Explain the World Bank too, will ya? What threat exists from those fearsome, plane-hijacking hordes who spend 98% of their time killing each other off in their Quest for the Caliphate? Or should we fear something else? Especially if "we" are living in, say, Africa, where the biggest threat is starvation, and the biggest human threat is foreign looters of natural resources, making "us" unable to make a ... well, to survive.

7. Liberals are soft on crime.

Here we go with that fantasy of "soft" and "tough". Note they do not say "hard". Prisons are "tough". And that includes the neocon's newest Orwellian invention, the Family Prison. Yes, a prison for the whole family - dad, mom, and the kids, including infants! Now there's family values for ya! Now that's not soft - that's Gulag tough! And Halliburton wins again! Guess what? They're in the "get tough" prison business! It's a win-win!

Unfortunately, when it comes to government wrongdoing, abuse, and Constitutional violations, the "Conservatives" (sic) are not only soft on crime, they're downright cushy-mushy with it. Then the "Liberals" are tough on government abuse of power and flagrant lying and Constitutional violation/manipulation. Also, Liberals believe that "Corrections" is not a misnomer, and include something other than Medieval dungeons, like education and rehabilitation services which have a proven track record of reducing crime. Now that's effective crime-fighting, not anti-crime posturing.

And Liberals aren't exactly removing laws from the books or cutting down on police departments. They just want more money spent on crime-fighting here and less on the crime problems of everyone else, everywhere else. Including the overbloated Terrorist Task Forces, built on the assumption that there's one under every bed, we've just gotta find 'em, and dedicated to the proposition that All Arabs/Muslims Are a Potential Threat. Instead of using their manpower to deal with actual crime, they are spending all those resources, human and otherwise, on hunting down potential suspects who fit the "profile", and after six years of dedicated service, we have uncovered thousands and thousands of terrorist plots, all but 3 of them false alarms. Tough on imagined crime, soft on real crime. Liberals are on target. Myth busted.

6. Liberals subsidize laziness.

This is an obvious jab at the public "welfare" system, usually "blamed" on Liberals. So the best solution, following this line of logic, is to let the poor, handicapped, mentally impaired, insane, economically or socially disadvantaged, and others generally discriminated against, such as children without trust funds, yes, just let all these people fend for themselves! Because they ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like General Patton, by God, and Republicans are there to help them do it by pulling out from under them any government assistance, so they can start from scratch just like Grandpa Bill did in 1892. Let's clear the government of this "waste" and these "huge government programs" that "take over" and "threaten our very democracy" by removing the God-given right of such people to just die and leave the rest of us alone.

Yes, it's subsidized "laziness" to try to feed and clothe disadvantaged children, especially if they are in this country, because that money could be better spent on weapons systems to kill such people in other countries, bomb civilian populations because they happen to live near a "terrorist hideout" or a "weapons facility" or an infant formula manufacturing plant.

But it's encouraging hard work to fill the Administration of the U.S. Government with good ol' boys and yes-men, and to eliminate job-training programs so we can spend more on the Iraq War, and we can employ more soldiers. Pretty soon, the only jobs left will involve guns and weapons systems. And they're all government jobs. And we want you...

5. Liberals are socialists, extremists, marginal, never mainstream.

If all of the above describes funding government to protect the unprotected, remember the forgotten, equalize the oppressed, free the enslaved, educate the ignorant, help the victimized, protect the environment and natural resources, and feed the hungry... then it's true.

But this assumes that such activities are "extreme" or "marginal" or the venue only of "socialists" (whatever they are as of now) - which sounds ludicrous to me. This presumes that ethical values, those traditional values taught in all "mainstream" religions, are actually "marginal" or "extreme" or "socialist". Now we're beyond ludicrous. Wasn't it Hitler who wanted to stop subsidizing the weak and the disadvantaged? He was definitely extreme, but he was no socialist. Get your values straight.

4. Liberals tax & spend, promoting Big Government.

Does Big Government mean Big Daddy, or Big Brother? The choice is yours. Our government has gotten big over time with the gradual increase of both largesse-to-humanity and control-freak-to-the-world. All costs money, all require taxes. But if you look at the stats, you find more "Liberal" governments, such as Clinton's, encouraging small business, opening up the U.S. economy, and creating an atmosphere of "can-do" and free enterprise ... all with relative fiscal responsibility and putting the deficit on a low-carb diet. With "Conservative" W's government, we are hemhorraging at the jugular from war after war after poorly-conceived, incompetently-run, special-interest-boggled war, the economy is going downhill along with the dollar, and small business is getting the shaft from huge, multi-national Goliaths who have the so-called "government" in their left pockets.

The rest of the money is going into more and more and more prisons, police, guards, soldiers, barbed wire, and detention camps. Especially aliens. We spend a lot on the detention and torture of aliens. All to keep you safe. Ah, and surveillance programs. Secret programs where you can be watched by Big Brother and you can't even know what you're charged with, or what they found out, or who they'll send it to, or why, or if you'll even have a home, country or family to your name tomorrow. Big Brother is watching you. But not on a Liberal's watch.

Hi, Dick!

3. Liberals are unpatriotic.

If patriotic means having flag tie tacks and bumper stickers, or attending VFW Post 47 meetings: guilty as charged.

If patriotic means defending the Constitution, our Democracy in its highest principles, and all that America stands for and has stood for over 230 years, including those rights guaranteed in the Amendments to the Constitution, then I submit that Liberals are in fact, carrying the torch of liberty at this time in history, and Conservatives, as represented by "neocons" and the Bush Administration, are posing the greatest threat to the freedom and democracy we hold so dear.

2. Liberals are bad for business.

Read number 4 above. The so-called Conservative pro-business stance only refers to the gargantuan powerful corporations who can afford to foot the bill for today's election campaign. Tax breaks are only for the rich. The poor have ... bootstraps. Try starting a business with bootstraps, Dick. This one should simply be corrected: "Liberals are bad for ... the unstoppable rise of the superrich."

1. Liberals are soft on defense, and weaken America's superiority and stature in the world.

Again, the word "soft" used deceptively. "Tough" means spending on weapons and defense industries all the money we get from the IRS and more, borrowing on future income. Since when is opening the floodgates of the economy and "Homeland" resources on one single government department "tough"? I would say neocons have a "soft" spot for the killing department, and a "hard" spot for people. No more weakness! We are tough! Thus spake Adolph in Germany many years back. It was all about detention camps, getting tough, looking for criminals and conspirators in every closet, and getting a purpose so the war machine can be motivated and on the move, inventing new killing machines, and increasing the military. And he didn't have to tamper with votes to get elected, democratically.

As for "America's stature", Bush and his cronies have succeeded in weakening that stature more than anyone could have imagined a few years ago, making us hated in Europe, not to mention in less familiar territory. Europe! I mean, these were our allies in WWII. There's been all this goodwill for over 50 years, and now... well, just go undercover and sit in any cafe, any public place, from the Netherlands to Germany to Italy to... it's definitely NOT a good time to be an American. Better stay home...

This was not the case with the last Liberal president, when America was on the ascendant, able to broker deals and command the respect and even admiration of many nations from east to west. Now someone tell me ... why is this "tough guy" stuff backfiring? I thought everybody loves a bully! Gee, I thought if you just tell everybody that we're the Leader of the Planet and we're the Best People on the Whole F-ing World and everyone else better tow the line and listen up, then everybody would just love us and obey us and worship us. And it was the Liberals who were going to put us all to shame, and make us an international pariah.

Soft on defense? Maybe soft on "offense". Weaken America? That's the Neocon Way. They just don't say it that way. It would be too damn honest. Haven't you heard? Honesty is soft.

Who's Afraid of a Big Dissent?

Do you ever get that sinking feeling that all the euphoria when Dems restored some balance of power to government is somehow - if not premature, not quite "euphoria"... more like "cautious curiosity checked by exaggerated caution"? Did you ever wonder why this democracy seems to lack some kind of vibrance? Like an injection of vitamin B or hormones might help ... in lieu of courage... If you're tired of being tired of politicians who never take a stand - except to say, "I always stand tall to take a stand!!" Please check out this great article from LexisNexis.com:

Where are the democrats? When it comes to Iraq, the opposition party is afraid to oppose.

By Michael, Terry

IT'S HARD TO get out of a deal with the devil. That's the congressional Democrats' dilemma as they continue to treat the Iraq war as a speed bump on their pathway to the perks of restored power.

Take Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Asked on one of the Sunday venues for pompous pontificators how he would respond to any attempt by President Bush to escalate the war in Iraq (to "surge," if you preferit in Newspeak), the Democratic "leader" on foreign policy responded, "There's not much I can do about it."

This is a man who sees a future president during his morning look in the mirror. Sadly, the glass reflects an empty suit who embodies the congressional Democrats' decision to reduce action on Iraq to a political calculus appropriate for the highway appropriations bill, not a moral imperative to challenge a policy that has sent thousands of twenty-somethings to their deaths in the desert.

You certainly can do something about it, Senator. It's called leadership. You rise on the Senate floor. You say you were out of your mind to write a blank check for this hideous abuse of American militarypower. And then you propose immediate withdrawal, just slow enough to maximize the safety of the 135,000 young men and women you helped put in harm's way by your collusion with this elective war. You do what Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon had the guts to do last month, stopping just short of accurately labeling this public policy obscenity a criminal enterprise.

I have lived in the 10 surreal square miles of D.C. for more than three decades, usually playing by the rules of decorum dictated by the political and media classes, first as a young congressional aide, later as a national party committee and presidential campaign operative, and now as an aging educator of journalism students who want to spend their careers interpreting politics.

But like millions of other Americans, I can no longer contain the primal scream I want to direct at the members of my party who declined to engage in a real debate in the run-up to this completely avoidable misjudgment of old men and women. Nonexistent, and certainly nonthreatening, WMDs. A secularist paper-tiger dictator, despised by the Islamist lunatics behind the September II attacks. A tribal culture with zero indigenous movement for pluralistic democracy.

All of those things were knowable when congressional Democrats such as Biden had an opportunity to stop this madness before it started.Some of them actually shared the neoconservative pretensions of a new American imperialism. But most just quaked in their permanent campaign boots, fearing being labeled Cold War-style liberal wimps. They averted their eyes and closed their mouths instead of acting like a responsible opposition party.

Read more...

Now, I'm waiting to see what the other candidates say/do. Hillary Clinton may look somehow very professional & all, but I get this sinking feeling ... like she's just another politician ...