dagblog - Comments for "Taking Our Country Back"

I read your post last night

MrSmith1 — Sun, 01 May 2011 16:03:20 +0000

I read your post last night and thought that the point of your thread was just that; that we, as a country, seem to have lost our generosity of spirit. Americans are no longer willing to merge as a culture; to give everyone their due and put up with the people we disagree with, for the sake of our joint efforts and living together. We all want to wipe out the other side or destroy them to such an extent, that we can bulldoze into oblivion. 'Live and let live' and 'I defend your right to say it' has given way to 'Get the F**k off my property!' Our political discourse is more informed by professional wrestling than by any noble ideals or thoughtful rumination.

We say we defend people's rights to free speech, then denigrate what they have to say. We don't debate ideas anymore, we accuse people who don't agree with us of being traitors to our purity of thought. Sure Republicans do it, but so do we. We, of course, make the excuse that when you're on the playground and you're being hit with a rock you don't continue to flail with your fists, you look for your own rocks. But then, how does it stop? It doesn't, unless you take the rocks from everyone, and then where would be? We'd be rockless and that would be wreckless. So we continue to hope for Political Wrestlemania MMXII to end our rivalries once and for all in a Royal Rumble, Last Man Standing, No Holds Barred, Steel Cage Match. Maybe we can get the Trumpster to be a guest referee. hahahaha.

It is true. I despair of

Barth — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:16:16 +0000

In reply to Your feelings are hurt too

It is true. I despair of viciousness. I believe in rational thought and not name calling And I agree as well that hating the haters is not an answer.

More lyrics: "I wish they'd cure the friendly neighbors
Of the disease which makes them haters"

But it is there. I try not to deal with sterotypes and, well, some of my best friends are from the south. So much courage has been shown by southerners at very important moments in our history, it would be foolish as well as wrong to lump them all together.

But, this relatively small region of what we have decided to constitute our nation has debilitated our politics for the entirety of our history. I see no solution to this problem in the near term. Does anybody?

Your feelings are hurt too

Dan Kervick — Sun, 01 May 2011 03:54:52 +0000

In reply to Taking Our Country Back

Your feelings are hurt too easily, Barth.

I get your pain, Barth, and

we are stardust — Sun, 01 May 2011 03:36:01 +0000

In reply to I am not suggesting any

I get your pain, Barth, and know how much you care for Spektor. And the rude comments she got back she should be able to take in stride, IMO, if she knew how many people read her diary and said what she said.

This conversation has haunted me a bit tonight, and what I have to say may seem puny as all giddy-up. But I have to say I don't know how much it helps to hate the haters. I grow so weary of all the conversations about who is evil and hateful and who's been wronged and victimized and never can heal from it for this or that reason.

It got me to thinking of a diary I read this morning at fdl; a man wrote about a play based on conversations with Iraqis of the Diaspora. Just some of the millions of displaced people caught up in more wars of hatred and strife, with leaders who serve them ill, but coommand obeisance or death. It never ends.

And here are some words, that to me, mean that we need to be careful about being consumed with hatred for the haters, the abusers. I dunno Barth; I'll just park them here, and if they are useless, i'll understand.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies. . . . If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

And how do you love the people who are not yet your own people? Maybe by asking the right questions.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

That is not quite the right question. And the answer is not “The one who had mercy on him.”

The right question is, while observing acts of mercy among the victimized, what should one do upon discovering oneself to have been one of the robbers?"

I dunno; maybe it makes more sense in context. G' night, Barth.

My question is: what is it

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 01 May 2011 02:26:01 +0000

In reply to I am not suggesting any

My question is: what is it that makes me connected to these people? Why are we one nation, under God or not, and indivisible? I am not feeling that much anymore and haven't at least since they impeached President Clinton and maybe as long ago as when some of them cheered when the President was murdered.

I can hear Phil Ochs asking Mississppi to find another country to be part of. Y'know?

Well here I relate to your feelings, as I think I understand them, completely. That is except for the way you seem to buy into regional stereotypes a bit too strongly. But the regional stereotyping is at least somewhat of a different subject. In my comment I meant to just poke fun at the idea of a person being surprised that there are people with radically different points of view who are just as convinced that they are right as is anyone else who actually has a well functioning head on their shoulders and tries to use it as a thinking instrument.
I was ranting a bit one time when a friend quoted a line he said was from Steinfeld. "People, Yeah, they are the worst".

I am not suggesting any

Barth — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:50:00 +0000

In reply to Really! Do you suppose that

I am not suggesting any restriction on free speech and quite agree that Adams would not either. It is not the criticism or disagreement that repels me; it is the things that are said about the supposed "issue" or the President himself. Regina suggested that Trump is racist and that others parroting this birther stuff do so because of the race of the President's father. There may be other motives for demanding that this President "prove himself" but I think she is on reasonably firm fround here.

Others can disagree. But to disagree the way so many did to her post does not reflect well on my fellow countrymen and women. Yes, Voltaire and I will defend their right to say what they said, but I don't have to like it, too.

I can hear Phil Ochs asking Mississppi to find another country to be part of. Y'know?

Really! Do you suppose that

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:33:24 +0000

In reply to So, that Regina lady goes up

Really! Do you suppose that she ever broke the rule and talked politics in a bar? Apparently not, or she would have known what to expect.

So, that Regina lady goes up

kgb999 — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:16:55 +0000

In reply to Taking Our Country Back

So, that Regina lady goes up on her facebook page - which has a decent following due to success using it to promote her music - calling those with whom she disagrees "ignorant racists like him" (the antecedent to "him" being "an entitled egomaniac") ... and a bunch of people left mean messages in return? I don't see how we're supposed to read some larger indictment into America - or even conservatives - from an inevitable flame war any rational human to enter existence since the emergence of 300 baud should have anticipated would result from posting a comment like that online.

Acting like she's been mistreated seems like the same faux victimhood claimed by Republicans when their over-the-top rhetoric illicits a backlash. Someone who walks in to a public forum and starts calling people names isn't a victim - they are an instigator.

Don't get me wrong - it's the public square and suppose I'd tend to agree with her more than not (although that's far from agreeing with her entirely). But good lord, karma's a bitch. If you go to dinner at a friend's house and start talking shit about the entire family - sometimes things get heated if the cousin you want to refer to in an amazingly hostile and insulting fashion happens to be sitting right there. She was a singularly crappy house guest if the desire was a friendly dinner.

Trump is for Trump; nobody

Richard Day — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:13:31 +0000

In reply to Taking Our Country Back

Trump is for Trump; nobody else.

People who cheer him on are fooling themselves if they think he gives on good damn about them.