this is more too-little-too-late from the Cowed Crowd.
Di-Fi wants to stop torture? Well GEE, Diane, maybe you should have thought of that before confirming Michael "Stonewall" Mukasey.

People like Di-Fi, Hagel and Snowe get to make a big show and prance around in their Righteous Indignation about The Very Bad People Who Torture. They don't make as much of a show about the fact that they confirmed the guy who allows the torture to continue.

You'll pardon me if I don't join in the applause. You don't get credit for fixing something YOU broke to begin with.

Posted at April 29, 2008 2:54 PM in response to Dems to Push Again to Limit Interrogation Techniques

progressives ARE screaming bloddy murder about this, but no one is listening.

I called my senators (Bob Casey and Arlen Speculum) about the subprime bailout several times, and have gotten zero interest or satisfaction from their offices.

Posted at April 21, 2008 12:17 PM in response to George Will Moves to the Left of the Democrats

"Internet Porn: Censorship may not be a viable or appropriate solution, but do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us? Study after study shows that porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions, and can shift norms of sexual expectations. Get a group of liberals in a room and there is little they will not pass judgment on, but when we start to talk about this in our politics, the conversation starts and ends with “So what are you going to do, censor it? Repress people sexually?” This is an irresponsibly false choice. Part of the conviction politics I outlined earlier this week is about calling things as we see it."

Who the hell are YOU to say what "a bunch of liberals" will do? And how much porn have you actually watched lately?

Sure, there's some ugly stuff out there, but to issue a blanket statement like "porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions" is just plain ignorant. Most porn simply shows people fucking, and I would rather watch that than most television which tends to depict people in violently murdered positions.

My girlfriend and I both watch internet porn, often together. Neither of us buy into "the culture of greed" and I resent being represented as such just because I look at naked ladies online.

Get your own house in order before you start pointing at mine. Someone in comments mentioned that you're Catholic. Maybe if your priests were allowed to enjoy the company of women they wouldn't be raping children. And don't get me started on the rest of the sexual moralists out there, from the closeted Foleys and Vitters in Congress to Oral Roberts University, all of who felt they have the right to tell people what to do with their genitals and all of who failed to live up to the standards they set for others.

Posted at November 3, 2007 7:42 AM in response to Our Culture War on Greed

dude take your proposed censorship and ram it up your butt.

It's none of your business what consenting adults choose to do with their genitals.

Posted at November 3, 2007 7:26 AM in response to Our Culture War on Greed

this is a driveby. no comments from grover.

sissy pants scaredy cat.

Posted at September 20, 2007 8:05 PM in response to The Case of Colorado

damn straight there's big trouble.

I do not know a single democrat who is happy with what's going on in congress, not one. they are making masssive mistakes by betraying the people who voted for them, and I also believe there will be bitter tears and recriminations in 2008.

Also, for the first time since Clinton/Dole, I do not expect to vote for a democrat: I will either stay how or, as I did in Clinton/Dole, vote third party.

Posted at August 22, 2007 11:48 AM in response to Victorious Interruptus

nice try troll, but you give yourself away talking aboiut "the democrat pary".

the poor spelling doesn't help either.

Posted at August 22, 2007 11:45 AM in response to Victorious Interruptus

I think you're equating my refusal to endorse "empathy" with our right-wing opponents with "dehumanizing."

From websters: 1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

So basically, it means "walking a mile in their shoes". Problem is, I find it impossible to empathize with a group that believes in policies that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I find it impossible to "see it their way" when the topic is "indefinite detention with no access to a lawyer" or "shall we repeal habeas corpus" or "shall we torture people". YMMV.

That doesn't imply dehumanizing the right (they do a fine job of that on their own). This simply means acknowledging that, while I can understand the right's reluctance to, say, investigate a president who started a war based on lies because it might implicate them in the process, that such notions are inherently unsupportable.

Posted at May 23, 2007 1:17 PM in response to Where Is The Love?

I'm not advocating violence.
I'm simply not advocating "empathy" for our right-wing foes.

Every time we have "empathy" for them they end up steamrolling us. The latest example was Alito: look how well that's worked out for us. You might as well ask me to have empathy for the Klan.

Who cares what they think? None of them have ever given shit number one what anyone else thinks, and to quote jesus "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Well it's about time we started "doing unto them that have done unto us."

In general, the right is a bunch of criminals, no different than any crime syndicate. That's not denying them their humanity: that's simply a statement of fact.

Empathy for the right. Sure. I'll get to that right after I get done with my empathy for John Gotti and Ed Gein.

Posted at May 23, 2007 12:42 PM in response to Where Is The Love?

"But we should remember that our heroes, the MLKs and the RFKs, preached love and empathy for even those who are unable to do the same."

Yeah well, that was then and this is now.
And what did it get those guys anyway, other than a bullet?

Posted at May 23, 2007 12:13 PM in response to Where Is The Love?