Home > Perspective

Substance on the Left?

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 8/10/2005 1:00:03 PM

After yesterday’s article about Howard Dean’s statements to a Vermont DNC fundraiser, I decided to try something.  I started to look for substantial foundation to the left’s position.  I got on Google (whose news browser regularly features leftist blogs, but refuses to index this site).  Google is the largest and most popular index of the Internet, so I thought my chances were good.  Was I ever wrong!

"I looked high and low.  There were sites that stated that they contained an intellectual foundation for liberalism.  However, they were filled to the brim with vitriol, ad hominem and nothing remotely close to facts supporting the liberal philosophy."

I looked high and low.  There were sites that stated that they contained an intellectual foundation for liberalism.  However, they were filled to the brim with vitriol, ad hominem and nothing remotely close to facts supporting the liberal philosophy.  This vacuousness is what is destroying liberalism.  Refrains of "Republicans are racist sexist bigoted homobphobes" fall flat when any person with eyes sees the African Americans in the most powerful offices in the nation, including an African woman in the highest cabinet position.  They ring hollow when the popular Vice President has a beloved daughter who also happens to be gay.  With the blogs constantly reminding the world that the civil rights bills of the 1960’s were passed through the Congress only because of the GOP, the people know the lies.  Liberals call themselves "progressive," yet they want to keep the status-quo on the Social Security system (created in the 1930’s) that is a ripoff for the retirees, and eschew forward-thinking changes that would bring a windfall to these retirees and the country as a whole.

I adapted the content from these websites to create a hypothetical debate between any liberal and any conservative.  This is based upon liberal blog content.  CAUTION:  I do not claim to be a neutral reporter.  I am a conservative commentator and I am proud of my conservatism.  Here’s a conversation that may have already happened somewhere.  The liberal starts; I reply:

"Bush Lied!  Soldiers Died!  There were no WMD’s in Iraq and Bush knew it!  He went after Saddam to avenge his Daddy and get oil for his Texas buddies!"

"But didn’t UN inspector Hans Blix say that Iraq was hiding information from the UN, and didn’t the UN pass seventeen resolutions, including one that authorized force?"

"Uhhh, ummm, there should have been more time!"

"Saddam was given from 1991 through early 2003.  How much more time should we have given him to come clean?"

"Uhhh, ummm, he said they were all gone!  We should have believed him!"

"As of now there is evidence that Iraqi munitions were transported to Libya.  The UN said that Saddam was not being honest about WMD’s.  Was Saddam to be believed over the UN’s own weapons inspectors?"

"Uhhh, ummm, what about the Downing Street Memo?  That shows that Bush lied!"

"What about it?  Downing street memo, a UK Eyes only document, talks about US pressure on Iraq to let in arms inspectors, and worries about WMD’s being used on any liberation force.  If this document supposedly shows that our President lied, then it does a shabby job, because the author records the fear of several UK cabinet ministers of Saddam’s WMDs.  The thought the WMDs to be real."

"Uhhh, ummm, Don’t you dare call him OUR president.  He was selected, not elected!"

"But didn’t several liberal news organizations conduct a manual recount of Florida 2000 and all of them find that George W. Bush won?"

"Uhhh, ummm, Al Gore should have been president because he got more popular votes!  This is a Democracy, not a Nazi regime!"

"Well, as for the ’Nazi’ comment, The Nazis were left-wing socialists.  We are not a democracy, we’re a Republic.  It’s in the Constitution.  The Electoral College exists to protect the rights of rural Americans and of the smaller states, by giving them a real voice in the election of the President.  Otherwise a person could win ten to twelve larger states and the White House, and the rest of America would be perenially unrepresented."

"Uhhh, ummm, So what!  Those hayseeds should not have more power than city dwellers!  One Man, One Vote."

"Well, ’hayseed’ is a bigoted commentary.  I already explained the fairness of the Electoral College.  It keeps the City dwellers from imposing tryanny upon those hard working Americans you call ’hayseeds.’ "

"Uhhh, ummm, well the Supreme Court should have stayed out of it!"

"Perhaps.  But Al Gore’s campaign was only trying to recount Democratic strongholds to gain a few votes and hurt W’s campaign.  The Florida Supreme Court flouted state law."

"Uhhh, ummm, but isn’t that a State issue?  What right did a Federal Court have to get in the way?"

"Yes, normally it is a state issue.  But in this case the state issue was having a profound Federal effect on the election of the highest Federal office.  The Supreme Court had an obligation to enforce the Constitution to ensure that Florida’s election was as fair as those in the other states."

"Uhhh, ummm, by forcing Florida to accept that Bush won?  That’s unfair?"

"How?  Bush got more votes in every recount."

"Uhhh, ummm, the ballot in Palm Beach was deceptive.  They should have had a re-vote!"

"Well, the Democrats designed that ballot.  Also, a re-vote is unfair to the absentee voters, who would have no time to revote, and could not have been organized in enough time to get the state’s electoral votes to Washington."

"Uhhh, ummm, he was still the loser!  And then he cheated in 2004 too!"

"Excuse me?  Are you referring to the Democratic operatives who slashed the tires of GOP get-out-the-vote vans in Wisconsin, or the Ohio Democrats who registered thousands of ineligible voters in that state?  Michael Jordan is a resident of Illinois but was registered to vote more than once in Ohio, obviously without his consent."

"Uhhh, ummm, what about shortchanging the black precincts of voting machines in Ohio?"

"The administrator of the Ohio elections was a black man.  And voting machines were allocated based on previous turnout numbers.  The election had a massive turnout.  I also understand that not one voter was turned away in Ohio!"

"Uhhh, ummm, well what about the voters who showed up at the wrong polling place?  They weren’t even given a provisional ballot!"

"I know that my polling place here in blue-state Illinois is told to me before every election.  I also know that it’s possible for a person to vote in the right precinct, then again in the wrong precinct, if a provisional ballot is used.  Then the voter is found to be registered, and the duplicate vote is counted.  Precincts need to prevent vote fraud too!"

"Uhhh, ummm, I still think he stole the 2004 election too!  He also bought the electiuon with a foolish tax cut for the ultra-rich!"

"But aren’t the lower-wage people already paying very little or no taxes?  The IRS says that the top 50% of wage earners pay 96.03% of all income taxes!  How much more do the rich have to pay?"

"Uhhh, ummm, they’re just lucky to have hit the jackpot.  The rest of us are hard workers, and we’re dwarfed by the rich GOPers."

"Statistically, even if you take billionaires like George Soros out of the equation, Democratic party donors are substantially richer than GOP donors.  Soros also poured tens of millions of his money into 527 groups to attack President Bush.  Democrats spent more than the GOP to lose seats in both houses, state houses and the White House.  Seems to me that the stars of the Democratic party are very rich entertainers and others who espouse a larger government!"

"Uhhh, ummm, what is so wrong with a big government that takes care its people?"

"As Thomas Jefferson, the alleged founder of the Democratic party, said:  ’Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have .... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.’  President Bush cut taxes, the economy is growing rapidly, the trend of outsourcing jobs that started under Bill Clinton has reversed, and the deficit is going down!"

"Uhhh, ummm, There would not have been a deficit if Bush hadn’t waged his evil war?  Bill Clinton left office with a surplus!"

"The surplus was caused by an irrational bubble in the stock market, caused partly by Bill Clinton, in tech stocks.  It even popped before Clinton left office.  He left President Bush with an impending recession, and the tax revenues were already drying up."

"Uhhh, ummm, But the unjust Iraq war has cost us billions!"

"The war is not unjust.  We were attacked!  Saddam was playing footsie with us about weapons of mass destruction.  I know, I know.  You think there were never any WMDs.  But Saddam sure acted like there was.  And Saddam was paying $25,000 to each family of a terrorist suicide bomber.  Iraq was the next logical target of the war on terror."

"Uhhh, ummm, Bin Laden was ignored!  He’s still at large!"

"Osama Bin Laden is unable to attack us with anything other than a VHS tape.  Saddam was killing people at a rate that makes him one of history’s more genocidal despots.  We stopped that."

"Uhhh, ummm, but the people of Iraq are killing our troops!  They want us out!"

"Iraq has over 20 provinces.  The only ones still fighting us, with the aid of Al Qaeda, are two where Saddam was the strongest.  The country is becoming more secure every day.  And we’re fighting Al Qaeda over there instead of over here."

"Uhhh, ummm, there would never have even been any war on terror if Al Gore were in office!"

"I disagree.  Bin Laden said he authorized 9/11 after he saw the Clinton administration’s namby-pamby reactions in Kosovo and Somalia.  He thought we had no stomach to fight him.  There would have been a 9/11.  And evidence unearthed only this month shows that Clinton’s policies made 9/11 possible by not allowing the FBI to come after the terrorists, who were known to the CIA!"

"Uhhh, ummm, what about their civil rights?  If you profile these people, then you delete liberty for us all!"

"I disagree.  There was no ’profiling’ needed.  We knew that Atta and others were terrorists, and the Gorelick ’wall of separation’ kept the FBI from pursuing them!  Since 9/11 there has been no attack in the USA.  That speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the Bush policies."

"Uhhh, ummm, the Patriot Act is a Nazi inquisition!  Isn’t that what you mean?"

"Yes, the Patriot Act is what I mean!  And it gives law enforcement powers to check out terror suspects.  It is certainly not any sort of a ’Nazi inquisition.’  By the way, you seem to throw about the term ’Nazi’ an awful lot when referring to Republicans.  Since the Nazis were socialists (the term is an anagram for National Socialist Workers’ Party), I certainly resent the implication.  If I have to refrain from calling President Bush ’our President,’  you should refrain from calling Republicans ’Nazi’ and from equating our policies to those of that evil regime!"

"Uhhh, ummm, but you are both extreme right wing groups!"

"Excuse, me, the Nazis were left-wing socialists.  Look up the history of that evil organization.  I also disagree that the GOP is extreme in any way!"

"But you hate women and don’t support the right to an abortion!"

"First of all, many Republicans are pro-choice.  Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Arnold Schwartzenegger and others come to mind.  Others are pro-life.  I am personally pro-life, on Constitutional grounds.  Also, President Bush has shown that he strongly supports women’s rights -- with his actions.  He has had more women in higher positions of power than any other President, ever.  This includes a black woman as Secretary of State!"

"Uhhh, ummm, Rice is not really a black woman!  She’s a traitor to her race!"

"Excuse me?  Is this the same Condi Rice who saw her friends church bombed when she was little?  Is the same Condi Rice who worked her way up to high office in academia, including provost of Stamford University?  Is the same Condi Rice that is now the highest-ranking cabinet official in the nation?  What has she done to betray her race?  Is she a ’traitor’ to her race because she’s Republican?"

"Uhhh, ummm, she is not willing to help her people.  She opposes affirmative action!"

"Actually she supports affirmative action.  She just did not need it herself.  Actually, I support some limited affirmative action until kids can get access to better grammar and high schools through vouchers."

"Uhhh, ummm, vouchers will destroy public education and funnel federal funds to religious extremist groups!"

"Actually, vouchers will give parents a choice of schools.  The money is being paid to educate the student.  The government-run schools have largely failed at education, mostly in poorer areas, which because of oppressive government welfare policy are filled with minorities."

"Uhhh, ummm, without welfare these people would have died!  We have to help those who are less fortunate!  You Christians are supposed to be all about helping out the less fortunate, so you are hypocrites to oppose all welfare!"

"I don’t oppose all welfare.  But the idea of the government taking money out of my paycheck and making my charity decisions for me is anathema to me.  As far as Christian philosophy goes, we’re commanded to be charitable -- personally.  We have a free will and can decide whether or not to obey God.  We are to give personally.  We have no say in wealth redistribution from welfare.  Therefore, we’re unable to obey God’s command, because the government is not the commanded one, and we’re unable to exercise the discretion God commanded, and we’re cut off from the money we would otherwise give to the poor."

"Uhhh, ummm, but the government has to step in or nobody would give!"

"That’s untrue.  People were not starving to death before the 1960s, when welfare as we know it came into existence.  Also, even now, we’re the most charitable people on Earth."

"Uhhh, ummm, but didn’t Jan Egeland of the UN call us stingy with the Tsunami disaster?"

"That was a libel.  Americans gave more than any other people to help with the Tsunami."

"Uhhh, ummm, but the USA government did not."

"Check your facts.  We sure did give the most!"

"Uhhh, ummm, not as a percentage of our wealth!"

"So what!  That is a meaningless statistic.  We gave what was needed.  The amount of money and effective support is only a measure of generosity if you give less than what was needed.  We actually gave more."

"Uhhh, ummm, and that’s why Bush put in that stupid tax cut in the middle of a war?"

"Nice subject change!  That ’stupid’ tax cut has revitalized the economy, and the increased revenue is erasing the deficit at a faster-than-expected rate.  Plus, the tax climate has reversed the Clinton-era outsourcing trend, and companies are bringing jobs back into the USA!"

"Uhhh, ummm, then why is this a jobless recovery?"

"Interesting, since since George W. Bush took office there are millions of new jobs and a lower unemployment rate!  Even the stock market is higher than when he took office!"

"Uhhh. Ummmm......"

to be continued.