What we have to look forward to

[elfs]

"Besides being a Marxist, Barack Obama is the most rabidly pro-abortion, morally defective and completely unqualified person to ever be given the keys to the Oval Office. This man is thoroughly evil, and I have little doubt that we are likely entering into the most dangerous period in the history of our country."

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

If I ever met the man that said that, I would likely cold-cock him. Not because I hate him so much, per hate, but because he's a goddamned liar.

Sure, this is gonna be a dangerous period. For him and people like him. They are likely to be ostracized, fired, bereft of everything they have, no so much as a pot to pee in. All because they cannot stand that someone different has been, if not overwhelmingly, handily elected their leader. And it's not like Obama doesn't have his hand out to them... nor is it even like McCain didn't tell them to take it. He did, and I gotta give him credit for that. No, they want their theocracy, and if they can't have it, well, they're gonna pee in everybody else's cheerios until they get it.

Well, guess what, chumps? that bowl of cheerios you just piddled all over? Eat it.

[skitten.livejournal.com]

god I love live journal! Handily well said!! kudos tot you!

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Thankee. We do try.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Obviously they need some pie. (http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/004492.html)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I gotta go to the liquor store and get some kahlua, so I can make some of that pie.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Obama lieks pie. =};-3

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Does anyone really listen to anything Worldnet Daily says? I hope not for everyone's sanity.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

They were fine for the first year. Then they took that hard right at I'llbequirky...

[mouser.livejournal.com]

People that already believe as they do listen to them.

They will find willing ears with those that are scared but are too ashamed to give voice to what it is they fear, unless we are kind and prove them we can all rise up and be better people.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

Well said.

I'm reminded of this song: All We've Got is Love, by Gaia Consort.

Specifically:

"We’re gonna meet ‘em on the street with kindness
We’re gonna live our lives with pleasure and with pride
We’re gonna celebrate the joy that binds us
Til life won’t seem worth living while they’re on the other side
We’re gonna take ‘em down with no shots fired
Join ‘em at the table with our fist in a glove
And when they ask us what in all the world has just transpired
We’ll say "All we’ve got is love...…"

We need to keep approaching the problems and the hate with gentleness and love.

[loba.livejournal.com]

Aw, yeah!

You said it, sister.

[solarbird]

I hear that the Freepers are eating themselves alive, and have also declared Fox News (!!) to be Enemy Media for reporting the Palin stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

Obama's daughters blow the top off the cuteness meter. I really hope the next four to eight years aren't too hard on them. It can't be easy dealing with all the scrutiny and gossip, not to mention less time with their dad.

Anonymous Blog Reader #127

[tagryn]

And then you have Michael Moore referring to McCain voters as "the racists" fueled by the "flame of hate." If you want to look for extremism, it isn't hard to find on either side.

For every sample of that, though, one can find this and this and this from the other side, congratulating the President-elect and hoping he does well for the nation's sake. I know its satisfying to try and demonize one's opponents, but the reaction from the losing side has been much classier than I expect we'd have seen by Obama supporters if McCain had won. Obama will get his chance to lead from the center and be everyone's President. It's up to him to do what he's promised.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

People are scared. They can feel the atmosphere of change just as clearly as those of us who welcome it. They have no idea where it will lead.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

That's the best commentary I've yet heart. Thank you.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

It is impossible to make a coherent argument in the face of raging insanity, therefore, I offer this picture of tits:

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, it's not all insanity. A good deal of it is classic GIGO.

Anonymous Blog Reader #127

**shudders and turns green**

[loba.livejournal.com]

I actually went and read the stuff that... person... puts out.

OwOwOwoOW!!!!

Now I really need a mental dose of Pepto-Bismol, because my brain wants to VOMIT!!! Maybe I should just get the Mental Ipecac and be done with it -- get that awful stuff out of my head once and for all.

Ew!! Ew!!! Ew!!!

Okay, though... I guess it's a good thing (even though it was AWFUL!!). I'm enlightened now. I had NO IDEA people actually thought like that, let alone published it. Whoa.... DUDE.

Re: **shudders and turns green**

[norincraft.livejournal.com]

Denied by the Network Administrator.

Hunh.

Well, from what you wrote that isn't a bad thing.

Re: **shudders and turns green**

[loba.livejournal.com]

This is waht I read (and got sick over):
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=80141

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

Wow, this fellow make Rush almost sound reasonable.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

As tagryn noted above, both sides have their wingnuts. Just imagine what would be all over Daily Kos, The Stranger, etc. if McCain had won. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Don't pretend the left is better.

[(Anonymous)]

Both sides certainly have their nutters, but I'm skeptical of the claim of equivalence. There would absolutely be wailing and gnashing of teeth at a place like DailyKos if Obama had lost, but I'm not at all convinced that it would be either as extreme or as widespread as the wingnuts can be. Anecdotal evidence on both sides of course, yadda yadda...

Anonymous Blog Reader #127

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Uh, yes, actually, at the moment, the left absolutely, positively is better than the right.

There was a time when both Hitler and Stalin were at large in the world, and each had large groups of Americans who supported him. This is not that time: extremists on the left have been completely marginalized, while extremists on the right are firmly in the mainstream.

Have you ever once in your lifetime seen a Communist politician elected to office in the United States? The working definition of "extreme left" in the US is defined by health care policies that are dead-center givens in the whole rest of the civilized world.

Have you ever once seen a liberal go on a network TV show and advocate the killing of conservatives as a class or the genocide of Christians? Have you ever glanced at Ann Coulter's sales figures? Have you once listened to G. Gordon Liddy? Did it occur to you to wonder whether there was any liberal public figure anywhere who would say anything remotely comparable?

The absolute worst of the worst that the Right seems able to come up with is Michael Moore. Go ahead: take the stupidest, most partisan thing he's ever said and weigh it against Michelle Malkin on a good day. What's the liberal analogue of her apologetic for the internment of Japanese-Americans? Or of Alberto Gonzales' memos approving the torture of prisoners? What pseudoscientific voodoo is the far left pushing that's remotely comparable to the mainstream right's creationism?

This kind of false equivalence is purest stinking bullshit. The right has gone absolutely fucking berserk.

If you want to have a debate about big government vs. small government, entitlement programs, the pace and direction of social change, let's go right ahead: hell, if you can produce a Goldwater republican, I'll buy the drinks all night. But first you need to realize that the core of the Republican Party has gone irredeemably rotten, and cut it the hell out.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

Okay, first of all, I am not a Republican. I'm a conservative, though not as much regarding social matters as regarding the size of government, economic matters, etc.

extremists on the left have been completely marginalized

Um, yeah, and Democrat politicians are happily writing guest columns for Daily Kos, where some of the most extremist views are said every day.

extremists on the right are firmly in the mainstream

Um, yeah, and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson didn't catch a whole shitload of criticism from conservatives regarding their comments that that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were caused by "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People For the American Way."

The absolute worst of the worst that the Right seems able to come up with is Michael Moore.

Um, no.

Markos Zuniga on the contractors whose burned bodies were hung from a bridge in Iraq: "I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

Harry Belafonte referring to Colin Powell: "In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and there were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him."

I wonder if Mr. Belafonte feels any differently now.

Ward Churchill on the victims of September 11: "If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

Then there was Andrew Sullivan's continuous implication that Trig Palin was Sarah Palin's grandson and not her son, not to mention all the hateful and vile things said about Sarah and her family all over the progressive side of the blogosphere.

The right has gone absolutely fucking berserk.

Both the far right and far left are off their collective rocker.

But first you need to realize that the core of the Republican Party has gone irredeemably rotten, and cut it the hell out.

Can't argue with that.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Falwell said, as you mention, utterly despicable things; but after a news cycle's worth of flak, he was back in the mainstream: before he died in 2006, John McCain and Mitt Romney both sought his blessing in their pursuit of the Republican nomination. Robertson did suffer more.

Churchill is a great example: while he'd had ethics complaints directed at him in the past, nothing came of it until the remark you quoted was publicized, at which point he was promptly fired.

Coulter and Malkin, by contrast, still appear regularly on mainstream news networks. You didn't mention them in your reply...?

While I must admit Kos' statement and Belafonte's are indeed more extreme than what I recall of Michael Moore's, they still fall rather short of the other examples we're discussing.

The idea that Andrew Sullivan is on the left gave me my first genuine smile of the evening. Thank you.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

The idea that Andrew Sullivan is on the left gave me my first genuine smile of the evening.

Hey, when it came to this election, if it walks like a duck....

Coulter and Malkin are inflammatory, it is true. You mentioned Malkin's "apologetic for the internment of Japanese-Americans." I haven't read it, so I can't render judgment. Did you read it? I know it was widely criticised, and a lot of her critics resorted to argumentum ad hominem rather than debate the work on its merits.

On the other side, there's practically the entire on-air staff of Air America. And there's Keith Obermann whose diatribes are often totally over the top.

And not to mention Sandra Bernhardt whose comments about Sarah Palin will not be repeated here.

You also said earlier:

What pseudoscientific voodoo is the far left pushing that's remotely comparable to the mainstream right's creationism?

How about anthropogenic global warming in the face of:

- Increasing dissent from climatologists and scientists and the fact that it actually hasn't gotten any warmer for several years?
- That it's actually been even warmer in the past before the Industrial Revolution?
- That a volcano can send more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than all of humanity?
- That the sun has just ended a period of high sunspot activity and that the sun, as the source of (almost) all heat has a much larger effect on our climate through even small variations in its output?

(Not that climate change isn't happening; what I'm talking about is how large a role humanity is playing in it.)

How about the bit about the waters receding once Obama is elected or that he's the only one who can heal our souls?

Listen, we can go back and forth on this. Let's just agree that both sides have their bomb-throwers and that they should be marginalized.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

I'm frankly not interested in filling up Elf's journal with this or spending anymore time on it at this point, but no, I do not agree with you by a long shot. I do suggest that you get your news about science less from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and more from actual journals; Science and Nature might be good places to start.

[radarrider.livejournal.com]

I do suggest that you get your news about science less from the Wall Street Journal editorial page and more from actual journals; Science and Nature might be good places to start.

We were having a nice, civil discussion and I decided to give you the last word. Then you had to go and end with a condescending and elitist comment based on an unfounded assumption.

Congratulations on your embodiment of the stereotype!

And now I bid you good day.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

There are some people in the media who deserve a close-up and personal encounter with a certain black momma wielding a cast-iron skillet