Reply #107: ...which is why I'm not a Republican

[anigbrowl]

Right now the GOP is pandering to the Tea Party, and the nativist/racist element who hate immigration, and the economic fundamentalists who believe all taxes and government services are evil. They are 'the party of No', usually voting against the administration on everything because if they don't, the wacko conservative fringe labels them traitors and raves about how it's time to polish up their guns. And even a GOP so far right that it's starting to sound fascist isn't considered conservative enough by the wingnuts.

The Democratic administraion has told its fringe, very bluntly, that it's out of the mainstream. Yes, it's hurtful to be told one's views are 'fucking retarded' or that one 'must be on drugs'. But I'm afraid it's going to keep happening until you adopt a reality-based perspective.

By that, I do not mean uncritical agreement with Obama, Pelosi, Reid or whoever. Advocating for the policies you want is a good thing, and so is constructive disagreement with policies you disapprove of. But that's not what we see at the fringe: instead we get empty slogans, ad hominem attacks, ignorance (of economics, civics, law and anything else that smacks of the mainstream), and a high level of aggression. The leftmost fringe of the party always appeals to emotion rather than reason, and always demands priority based on the worthiness of its goals, while offering little or no input on how to achieve those goals.

A huge percentage of DU threads degenerate into 'tax the rich!' or 'bring back the guillotine!' why yes, I AM in favor of progressive taxation, and I DO think that the main failing of Republican economic policy is the relentless upward distribution of wealth. But I also think that there's a lot more to economics that just calling everyone over a certain threshold a class enemy and jacking the top marginal tax rate to 100%. So what if that's how the right operates when they piss on the poor? There is nothing morally superior about picking a different class and saying you'd like to piss on them instead. It's fundamentally childish.

As for the regular hymns to the guillotine, give me a fucking break. Apart from the latent sadism on display (which is utterly toxic to moderate and independent voters, even more so than the Republican gun fetish), it displays an utter ignorance of history. 'People's Republics' in China, North Korea, Cambodia and many other places have started out intending to right the wrongs of society by lopping a few heads of the worst exploiters, and ended up carrying out indiscriminate slaughter of anyone who even looks like a dissenter. Besides the inhumanity of this, it destroys the country economically for a generation or longer. In Cambodia the Khmer rouge ended up imrpisoning or killing people because they had glasses, which was taken as a sign that they liked reading and were thus more likely to have ideas of their own that might not square with the leaders of the revolution.

But perhaps you think this is a crazy example, and what you refer to when you mention the guillotine is the more englightened country of France. Well, study your French history better. The use of the guillotine ended up as a free-for-all in France too, until common sense reasserted itself and the leading proponents of the guillotine, such as Marat and Robespierre, ended up being executed themselves. And once France had got past that little bump on the road? Seven years after the French revolution - less than two presidential terms - Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup and became the most powerful man in France, acclaiming himself Emperor 5 years later and devoting himself to the conquest of Europe for another 15 years before being defeeated. Napoleon wasn't some sneaky aristocrat who hid from the guillotine - in fact, his military skills played a key part in the success of the revolution.

I'll stop there, although I could go on about French history and the difference between France today and the popular, but mistaken, beliefs about it on the left. I'm European, I speak French, I like the country and admire a lot of things about it - but it is not the post-revolutionary socialist paradise that many on DU imagine it to be. Next time you endorse setting up guillotines, I suggest you think real hard about what happens after the novelty factor wears off.

So, if you were hurt by the phrases 'fucking retarded' or 'must be on drugs', now you know how we moderate liberals feel when we're on the receiving end of your ideological rants.