If someone gang raped your friend, could you act civil toward the rapist?
Bush and Co enabled by his voter’s, have Gang Raped America and the Constitition and our Financial system. Yet those of us that are pissed off about it are somehow portrayed as being over the top for pointing that out. Am I wrong for holding Republican’s responsible for their votes?
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Cast your vote, hope that others share your opinion. Making a scene about your political differences in opinion will only make you look bad.
I disagree with the gang rape analogy. Bush, as most of us will agree was not a good choice for presidency. People point that out on a daily basis. I haven’t heard anyone calling it being “over the top” His current rating proves that majority of the country believes he was a bad choice. You can hold Republicans responsible for their votes by saying “Don’t make the same mistake twice” etc etc. But by constantly saying something along the lines of “You are all idiots. How could you possibly vote for him? This is all YOUR fault!” is not exactly productive. Psychology tells us that berating people like that just makes them less likely to listen to you the second time and makes them resent you for treating them like that.
A better way of dealing with this situation would be trying to make people more aware by volunteering for your candidate/party and canvassing neighborhoods to help people see the other side of things. People react a lot better to genuine emotion and logic when they aren’t being patronized and rebuked.
“gang rape” elicits a sever emotional response that I am in no way prepared or willing to attach to political discussion.
rape of any kind, as your referring to it is the utmost in violent and invasive personal horror. I can’t tie it to politics.
“violent and invasive personal horror”
I think that’s the point.
I am a finance guy and have been for 10 years. Gang Rape, is the best possible description/analogy I can use to describe what has been done to the country financially. We are virtually insolvent, or credit systems are seized up, the conservative government is socializing the losses of the institutions that have been unregulated and that decimated the fabric of our neighborhoods (foreclosures), and 20 million manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas (to communist China, by and large) replaced by Walmart type jobs.
All this while the top 1% wealth wise have gained an in fathomable amount of wealth, while getting massive tax breaks, while we are in 2 different wars, and our deficits are the largest of any in the history of the world.
Ideologically drive people, i.,e., Republicans cannot be reasoned with any more than Muslim Fundamentalist can be reasoned with. Liberals by nature tend to be polite and follow rules of discourse, and this is why we loose elections.
@Bri—the last 8 years have been “the utmost in violent and invasive personal horror” and you may not be prepared to face it, that is fine, but as a father of 2 girls, I feel that THEIR American dream has been taken from them.
The time is now for Liberals to play the game that Republicans have been playing since Lee Atwater’s days with Ron Reagan. We’ve got to stand up to the ignorant and fight with words and ideas and every other means necessary to regain our Democracy, that has just about slipped though our hands. Thank you!
blastfamy—apathetic ignorance and indifference “will only make you look bad”.
i do not care if it is political or other wise i make dam sure the go to jail
That’s an intentionally misleading phrasing for your question. You can express your strong political opinions without creating discord and approbation.
I fear that your overtly hostile and reactive phrasing may actually encourage those who are in the middle to move away from an anti-Bush, anti-Republican opinion because they are offended by your tactics.
I react that way to rabid conservatives – I refuse to even listen or partake in argument because I find the rhetoric so offensive. A reasonable and intelligent argument is the way to educate and sway voters, not foaming at the mouth.
@ciripet for God’s sake, use spell-check and punctuation!
@syz——liberal politeness allows the impolite to win the debate—I am simply using the tactics that have led Repubs. to victory over the last 8 yrs…..and since most liberals agree with you and not with me, we will have a Presnitz McCain on Nov. 4th, until we liberals grow “a set” and take it to the other side they way they are taking it to us.
Syz, your approach assumes Americans are intellegent, educated and well intentioned. Remember, Bill Clinton said “Americans will vote for someone who is strong and wrong, over someone who is right but weak.” Not to me, but to the Average American, your/liberal nuance is viewed as week.
We will keep loosing until and unless we realize that Repubs.
1 are brutal
2 will do anything to win
3 think you are stupid
How many time do you want us to loose, while adhering to polite rules of discourse?
syz—“intentionally misleading phrasing”—-that is a pathetic premise.
The question is a good and accurate analogy of the last 8 yrs.
Read the responses.
You pretty much stand alone.
You antagonize and alienate.
You are working against the very thing that you want to happen.
When did the Right take control? Beginning with Right wing talk radio, antagonizes and alienates——this is what American’s respond to.
I do not have this persona in my daily life, but until liberals learn to fight, we will continue to loose——even though you want to blame me for our upcoming defeat this November.
Obama is beginning to make John Kerry look like a Champion——I don’t like it either, but that does not change the facts.
If every liberal over the next 50 days, gets in the face of the Repubs they know, stands them up, and make them take responsibility, ostracize them in the work place, don’t let your kid’s play with them, hold them to account
......this is the only chance we have to take the country back.
I can imagine Thomas Paine saying, “he syz, don’t antagonize, don’t alienate, you are going to loose the folks in the middle”—-that is the looser liberal strategy every election.
This is a fight for the future of our children, you may be polite and let it happen, for my kids, I am willing to take the strongest of positions.
I think, that “You are working against the very thing that you want to happen.”
In answering the title question, if someone gang raped my friend, no I could never act civil towards the rapist.
@allen – i didn’t mention it before because i thought it was typo. But since you have written it the same way about 7 times now, just want to let you know it’s “lose” not “loose”
By the way Lehman Bro. negotiations with Barclay just ended and it looks like BK or Reorganization of another major American Financial Institution…...and I’m the asshole…..
Perhaps you’re correct. Perhaps, in order to win, we have to emulate the Republicans. If that’s the case, then I fear I must move to Montana, live in a shack, collect assault weapons and send incendiary devices through the mail. Or perhaps move to Canada.
(Shall I continue the flame wars and say it’s not a financial outcome that makes you an ass? Who will listen to the content of your comments when the phrasing is so antagonistic rather than thoughtful and measured? We are truly in the same camp when it comes to political views, but yours is the attitude that makes me want to vote against you in reaction [not that I would waste my vote in something so important as a presidential election].)
The american people did elect George Bush (electoral college aside). When last I checked, we were in Iraq during 2004. Care to prove me wrong?
No, I couldn’t be civil to that person who gang-raped my friend. But I would do more to avoid looking looking like an ass than to get on a soapbox and yell and kick and scream about how that person is such a bad person. Get involved in supporting those who will not “gang rape” people. The only way to send a message to people is to have them listen. Have you ever noticed how people ignore those screaming on a street-corner-sopabox?
Several election officials served jail time as a result of the 2004 election fraud in Ohio, I assume your Google is not broke, and it is in all public records. True we were in Iraq in 200—what’s your point?
syz——I understand your view of antagonistic phrasing. I feel the same way about war, yet I don’t vilify or condemn the American Revolutionaries, the WW1 or WW2 vets——sometimes in this world evil is used for good.
The other side feels that the ends justifies the means, we gotta start winning. We can win by holding the traitorous Republicans responsible.
Anyone have property in Montana they’d like to sell?
will you rent me a room if I promise to be quiet?
LOL, I think most shacks only have one room….
Thanks, allengreen. I appreciate that we were able to disagree on something and still be civil (I tried!). I guess politics and religion are almost guaranteed to be hot button topics.
from Bri: “gang rape” elicits a sever emotional response that I am in no way prepared or willing to attach to political discussion.
rape of any kind, as your referring to it is the utmost in violent and invasive personal horror. I can’t tie it to politics.
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a might bit severe….I must say. (I am a rape victim….are you, Allen? ) I doubt you would use that term if you were, but I’m speculating.
My country and my industry are rape victims, and I gave careful consideration to the analogy. I could not find another analogy that really creates the image of what has happened to our country under the Republican control of the last few years. Though I understand that many folks pay attention to Paris and Brittany and Jon Benet and don’t give an ounce of energy toward following world events that affect our lives.
The party® that destroyed America is what the history books will say.
Assuming a miracle happens and the bastards don’t steal this election: Bush will return to the people a country that has not only been raped, but gang raped, tied up in the basement, beaten, bruised, infected, and the destroyed shell of the country that our parents left us. The last 8 yrs have been “utmost in violent and invasive personal horror.”
Those who do nothing will be judged harshly by future generations…
* looks around 2009 America and roffles *
In response to the non-political part of your bait-and-switch question: Yes, I imagine that I could be civil to my friend’s rapist. I am naturally phlegmatic, and I was raised to be polite. Certainly not in flagrante delicto, but in court? I do not doubt it.
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