[santorio]

The French were once our closest ally -- without them we would have lost the Reolutionary War.

During WWII when the French Vichy government capitulated to the Nazis many attitudes towards France were changed. (And athough British animosity towards the French goes back centuries, some Brits completely blame what they call France's cowardice in WWII for the subsequent full-bore Nazi attack on Britain.) Much (too much?) American blood was spent winning back the soil that many of the French were unwilling to fight and die for.

Now, as Rumsfeld so crudely put it, to the Neo-Cons the French and France are part of "Old Europe" -- both are deemed unnecessary and unhelpful in the New World Order.

[GenrieAB]

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

“Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character”

“Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.”

“If we are attacked we can only defend ourselves with guns not with butter.”

--Joseph Goebbels, 1897-1945, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment, 1933-45; Chancellor, April 30-May 1, 1945.


Wikipedia.



Just to show how much he knew what he was talking about:

“If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered.”

Churchill was so taken with the phrase that he made it his own.

[freediscountplanrrxip]

Go back another decade to VP Spiro Agnew who, before he was compelled to resign as Vice President due to his personal corruption, made public and linguistic sport of skewering "Radical-Liberals" ...

True, Agnew railed against liberals but he was not really the political or social force Reagan was. I really do not think the elecorate gave a crap about what Agnew did or did not believe.

Still, you have a point in terms in terms of timing. McGovern was probably the last true liberal to run for higher office, and he was creamed in '72 primarily because the silent majority held the Vietnam loss against the LBJ administration and anti-war demonstrators. Had Nixon not been impeached, the GOP probably would have won in '76 as well. Still it was Reagan's popularity and hard right rhetoric, coupled with the relative ineffectiveness of the Carter admin that nailed the coffin shut for the left.

[Theorsell]

Actually, Nixon was not impeached. He resigned before articles of impeachment were brought up by the House.

[sisuarmalmicy]

of course you are right. the judiciary committee voted to impeach the president but he resigned prior to the matter being brought to the full house.

[Vapepreab]

Dumb it down, and do it with disdain ...

Verbage

The Republican war on words.



THE NEW YORKER
by James Wood
October 13, 2008

A Critic’s Notebook

In recent elections, the Republican hate word has been “liberal,” or “Massachusetts,” or “Gore.” In this election, it has increasingly been “words.” Barack Obama has been denounced again and again as a privileged wordsmith, a man of mere words who has “authored” two books (to use Sarah Palin’s verb), and done little else. The leathery extremist Phyllis Schlafly had this to say, at the Republican Convention, about Palin: “I like her because she’s a woman who’s worked with her hands, which Barack Obama never did, he was just an élitist who worked with words.” The fresher-faced extremist Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, called Obama “just a person of words,” adding, “Words are everything to him.” The once bipartisan campaign adviser Dick Morris and his wife and co-writer, Eileen McGann, argue that the McCain camp, in true Rovian fashion, is “using the Democrat’s articulateness against him” (along with his education, his popularity, his intelligence, his wife—pretty much everything but his height, though it may come to that). John McCain’s threatened cancellation of the first Presidential debate was the ultimate defiance, by action, of words; sure enough, afterward conservatives manfully disdained Barack Obama’s “book knowledge.” To have seen the mountains of Waziristan with one’s own eyes—that is everything.

Doesn’t this reflect a deep suspicion of language itself? It’s as if Republican practitioners saw words the way Captain Ahab saw “all visible objects”—as “pasteboard masks,” concealing acts and deeds and things—and, like Ahab, were bent on striking through those masks. The Melvillean atmosphere may not be accidental, since, beyond the familiar American anti-intellectualism—to work with words is not to work at all—there’s a residual Puritanism. The letter killeth, as St. Paul has it, but the spirit giveth life. (In that first debate, McCain twice charged his opponent with the misdeed of “parsing words.”) In this vision, there is something Pharisaical about words. They confuse, they corrupt; they get in the way of Jesus.

But we all need words, and both campaigns wrestle every day over them. Words are up for grabs: just follow the lipstick traces. For days, the McCain camp accused Obama of likening Governor Palin to a pig, because he likened a retooled political message to a pig with lipstick. Eventually, McCain (who had previously described Senator Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan as a pig with lipstick) was forced to fudge. No, he conceded, Senator Obama had not called Governor Palin a pig, “but I know he chooses his words carefully, and it was the wrong thing to say.” This was instructive, not least because it sounded like implicit praise: maybe I don’t choose my words very carefully, but he does, so he should have chosen them more carefully.

Meanwhile, the campaign that claims to loathe “just words” has proved expert at their manipulation, from reversals of policy to the outright lies of some of its attack ads (“comprehensive sex education”) and the subtle racial innuendo of a phrase like “how disrespectful” (used to accuse Obama of making uppity attacks on Palin). Karl Rove—along with predecessors like Lee Atwater and protégés like Steve Schmidt—long ago showed the Republicans that language is slippery, fluid, a river into which you can dump anything at all as long as your opponent is the one downstream. And, to be fair, those who affect to despise words have been more skillful than their opponents not just at amoral manipulation but at the creation of what Orwell called “a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech.” Pit bulls and lipstick stuck for good reason.

Or take McCain’s slogan “The Original Maverick,” now attached to many of the campaign’s ads. It cynically stipulates that politics is just merchandise, by sounding as close to a logo or a brand name as possible. But it also understands that consumers trust brands that sound like “quality.” Thus “Original,” which has the reassuring solidity of something like “Serving Americans of discernment since 1851,” or, indeed, “Levi’s 501: Original Jeans.” In such formulations, “Original” means eccentric, strange, unusual, and also first, best, belatedly copied by others. Better still, the phrase sounds like the tagline from a movie poster; not for nothing has McCain taken to announcing that “change is coming soon, to a district near you.”

If Obama is the letter (words, fancy diplomas, “authored” books), then the latest representative of the spirit is Sarah Palin. Literary theorists used to say that their most abstruse prose was “writing the difficulty”—that the sentences were tortuous because there was no briskly commonsensical way of representing a complex issue. Sarah Palin, alas, talks the difficulty. She may claim, as she did in last Thursday’s Vice-Presidential debate, that “Americans are cravin’ that straight talk,” but they are sure not going to get it from the Governor—not with her peculiar habit of speaking only half a sentence and then moving on to another for spoliation, that strange, ghostly drifting through the haziest phrases, as if she were cruelly condemned to search endlessly for her linguistic home: “I do take issue with some of the principle there with that redistribution of wealth principle that seems to be espoused by you.” And words do matter, after all: it matters that our Vice-Presidential candidate says, as she did to Gwen Ifill, that “nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all-end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.”

Hearing her being interviewed by Sean Hannity, on Fox News, almost made one wish for a Republican victory in November, so that her bizarre locutions might be available a bit longer to delve into. At times, even Hannity looked taken aback; his eyes, slightly too close to each other, like the headlamps on an Army jeep, went blank, as if registering the abyss we are teetering above. Or perhaps he just couldn’t follow. The most revealing moment happened earlier, when she was asked about Obama’s attack on McCain’s claim that the fundamentals of the economy are sound. “Well,” Palin said, “it was an unfair attack on the verbage that Senator McCain chose to use, because the fundamentals, as he was having to explain afterwards, he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people. And of course that is strong, and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there, again, based on verbage that John McCain used.” This is certainly doing rather than mere talking, and what is being done is the coinage of “verbage.” It would be hard to find a better example of the Republican disdain for words than that remarkable term, so close to garbage, so far from language. ♦

ILLUSTRATION: Saul Steinberg, Untitled, Copyright The Saul Steinberg Foundation.

Copyright © 2008 CondéNet. All rights reserved

[DoctorBretonDen]

Why do so many Americans hate liberals?

Realizing the inexact nature of the term "liberal" and the variance in meaning when self applied versus when used as a label -- in addition to the 20th century 'newspeak' co-opting of the term -- I'll offer some thoughts.

Classically the term liberal referred to someone who believes in the axiomatic virtue of human liberty, self determination, and personal achievement -- grounded fundamentally in practice by the necessity of equal treatment of all under the law. In contrast, the contemporary liberal is a collectivist who believes egalitarianism can and must be promoted by inherently unequal government policies -- not egalitarian treatment -- but egalitarian ends.

Nowhere is the difference between the reasoning of the older liberalism and that of neoliberalism clearer and easier to demonstrate than in their treatment of the problem of equality. The liberals of the eighteenth century, guided by the ideas of natural law and of the Enlightenment, demanded for everyone equality of political and civil rights because they assumed that all men are equal. God created all men equal, endowing them with fundamentally the same capabilities and talents, breathing into all of them the breath of His spirit. All distinctions between men are only artificial, the product of social, human—that is to say, transitory—institutions. What is imperishable in man—his spirit—is undoubtedly the same in rich and poor, noble and commoner, white and colored.

Nothing, however, is as ill-founded as the assertion of the alleged equality of all members of the human race. Men are altogether unequal. Even between brothers there exist the most marked differences in physical and mental attributes. Nature never repeats itself in its creations; it produces nothing by the dozen, nor are its products standardized. Each man who leaves her workshop bears the imprint of the individual, the unique, the never-to-recur. Men are not equal, and the demand for equality under the law can by no means be grounded in the contention that equal treatment is due to equals.
Ludwig von Mises, "Liberalism In The Classical Tradition," p. 27
An excellent illustration of the point can be seen in the concept of The Height Tax, NYTimes 2007.

A foundational tenet of today's liberalism is that treatment of non-equals unequally -- though indistinguishable in their basic humanity and dignity -- for the purpose of causing them to become equal by some pluralist metric is permissible, desirable, and even obligatory.

This is not to say that the majority -- or even a significant number -- of Americans opposed to today's distorted understanding of the term liberal have such a clear ideological opposition. I fear it is due in large part to the ignorant misguided populism described by ablarc.

Regarding the 'war on words' article above, I hold out some hope that in trying to combat the republican sophistry regarding their slur like use of the term liberal, some socialistic types might go back and read some early works defining the irreducible ideals of classical liberalism and see the error of their ways. But sadly, the likelihood that today's liberals will rebrand themselves as progressives and distance themselves from the term leaving it deemed a toxic label by both sides of the contemporary mainstream is far more likely. With this turn the complete destruction of the enlightenment's core principles will be complete.

[Kamendoriks]

With this turn the complete destruction of the enlightenment's core principles will be complete.

Now, the Enlightenment's core principles were never really put in place, were they --even by their most ardent advocates, like Thomas Jefferson. That sainted gent was either morally blind or a cynical hypocrite, which is the same thing.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: all were observed by the Founders in the breach. Liberte applied to all men except slaves, Egalite applied to all men except slaves, Fraternite could be found (if at all) in the master's bedroom.

Jasonik, you need to sharpen up your hagiography.

[ftpsoft]

It is basic human nature.

Liberal = Change

Or, rather, the willingness and ability to ACCEPT change. I have noticed a few things, even in myself as I grow older, that points to why humans, in general, do not like this.

When you are growing up, everything is changing. Our bodies and minds are built to cope with this and we learn, grow, evolve into the adults we are now.

Kids that grew up in the last 20 years are all familiar (at least, in part) with TV remotes and video games. Cell phones, computers and photocopy machines. But get your average 60 year old to go up and use a new TV remote. Do it!

You not only get a general feeling of uncomfortably, but an almost palpable fear of it. A revulsion of it.

This has started to fade, as more of us have shown our parents and grandparents how to use these common modern devices, but the adoption of something unfamiliar to them, even if it may improve their life, is something met with fear and disdain.

And why is this? Where is this fear and hatred coming from? There seems to be one major place where this seems to fit best.

Experience.

This word has many meanings, but in our lexicon it is given almost reverence. Like the Leather-worker with "25 years experience" in making shoes, or the Master Swordsman that teaches his students the ways of the blade (especially prominent in Asian folklore and fiction).

Experience gave rank, privilege, respect and security. You knew what you had to to survive, and you were better than the new ones coming up the line under you.

But that changes when you try something new. Whether it be a skill, technique or even a set or rules for conduct and decorum, people know that a change in things forces them to re-evaluate their own base and may force them to change, at risk of losing their earned position at work or in society.

But why is it so hard to change? Another simple answer. We were not BUILT for that. People are built for change when they are growing up. Kids below 4 years of age can pick up 2 or 3 languages as easy as 1 (trust me, I know, they are like little sponges!). Their brains are still broad-banded to accept what their environment tells them they need to survive.

As we get older, it gets harder and harder to teach an old dog, lipstick or not, new tricks. Nowhere is this more apparent than in those that never were really good at learning tricks in the first place. Ones that were not exposed to 20 different ethnicities on a daily basis when looking for lunch. Ones that did not, in one day, go from learning about Baroque art to Partial Differential Equations.

Joe six-pack.

But Joe does not like to be told something he knows. That he is worth less than any other man. After all, he can do more push ups than Wendell over there, and can belch the Star Spangled Banner off of one can of Schlitz!!! (I am being sarcastic, but truth is, some areas are not far from this in measuring social standing!).

Every human wants to rank higher than those around them, and they do not like to be faced with the fact that they are not.

So, when faced with change, something they do not feel comfortable with, that will not only make it so that the younger generation will show them up in, but areas around the country will as well, they reject it consciously and subconsciously.



That is bad, but when you think about it, isn't that also what our bodies were wired for? To try and get what would benefit us, or what we perceive to benefit us?

It is to the benefit of ignorant people, at least in the short run, to have everything similar to what they know and trust. Because if it isn't, they simply have no way of dealing with it. Darwinism does not always "evolve" an organism. Sometimes it just makes it fight for whatever makes it happy.

[AngelBee]

Now, the Enlightenment's core principles were never really put in place, were they --even by their most ardent advocates, like Thomas Jefferson. That sainted gent was either morally blind or a cynical hypocrite, which is the same thing.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: all were observed by the Founders in the breach. Liberte applied to all men except slaves, Egalite applied to all men except slaves, Fraternite could be found (if at all) in the master's bedroom.

Jasonik, you need to sharpen up your hagiography.

ablarc has cleverly, or unwittingly illustrated a peculiar brand of 'reasoning' not only employed by today's liberals.

His example of Thomas Jefferson may equally be used as a rebuke for admirers of American Palladian revivalist architecture. The stylistic admiration is flawed and will be forever tainted by it's association with Jefferson -- an imperfect man whose ideals were shamefully loftier than his actions.

By this 'logic' ideas needn't be directly rebutted or even alternatives proposed. No, the idea must only be associated with a figure presenting a frailty in character to be conveniently dismissed.

Adopting the style I'll not defend segregation, just dismiss the idea of opposition to segregation:
Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.
Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) The man certainly knew something about adultery.
Three relationships were more than one-night stands, and Martin grew especially close to one woman. The "relationship, rather than his marriage, increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King's life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings that were a commonplace of King's travels."
"Bearing the Cross", by David Garrow "Martin and I were away more often than we were at home; and while this was no excuse for extramarital relations, it was a reason. Some men are better able to bear such deprivations than others, though all of us in SCLC headquarters had our weak moments. We all understood and believed in the biblical prohibition against sex outside of marriage. It was just that he had a particularly difficult time with that temptation.
"And the Walls Came Tumbling Down", by Ralph Abernathy This is certainly enough to call into question the whole concept of desegregation.

Q.E.D.

[Mearticbaibre]

This is certainly enough to call into question the whole concept of desegregation.

Q.E.D.

Sorry, Jasonik; quid non est demonstrandum. It's not Jefferson's frailties in the bedroom that gave the lie to his principles; it's his personal failure to comply with the principles themselves. It's as though Martin Luther King was a closet segregationist --which of course he wasn't. Jefferson, however, was an elitist in a Jacobin's cap.

[astonmartinrx371]

americans dont hate liberals....
for the most part, its only the rural white religious people who are so against "the left"
while not the majority, they're so well known because they are the most vocal; its the same with nimbys. the most vocal people are the ones who are the ones most against something (ideal, building, etc)

[HagsPusia]

Most nimbys are liberal.

Untangle that one.

[Fdmnrnba]

Here's are 10 reasons of my own, not in any particular order:

1. Low-flow showerheads.
2. Affirmative Action
3. "sheroes"
4. Banning of the incandescent light bulb.
5. Nonsense such as "global warming"
6. "Share the wealth"
7. Political correctness/restrictions on freedom of speech
8. Shrillness of groups such as NOW, Sierra Club, ActUp, Code Pink, etc.
9. CAFE
10. National Environmental Policy Act of 1970


To be clear, I'm more libertarian than conservative, so in some areas I am in complete agreement with the so-called liberal. What I can't stand is the classic "liberal" who talks a good game about freedom and then demands that you live as he does.

[VZF74G0M]

Taking global warming seriously would only creates new jobs, new industry... it creates wealth. The US auto industry is dissolving before your eyes while the Prius is hit. Such foresight!

---

Fortunately the US has taken a turn to the Left: It is the shrill angry modern Republican-party conservatives who believe that parading before us hockey-moms and Joe-the-Plumber know-nothings would have helped them win the election: wrong.

Gee after this election maybe the thread should be retitled why do so many Americans hate conservatives?

What I can't stand is the classic "liberal" who talks a good game about freedom and then demands that you live as he does.

Uh... you mean like the hypocritical religious right? You mean like the conservatives lecturing to us about elites but then MUST dress their VP candidate in Italian-made Valentino? Yeah, Bob... tell us about it!

[EtellaObtaite]

...and their argumentative in your face nature.

[xFZ3k8Mw]

Here's are 10 reasons of my own, not in any particular order:

1. Low-flow showerheads.

Uh, you live in the desert.

[Grennios]

But there's the Colorado River.

Oh wait, it doesn't reach the ocean anymore.

Nevermind.

[JRixlcvF]

Plus I can't see it from my apartment.

[cQT6nmEc]

hmmm ... what does grey water taste like?