OT: Traditonal Values Restored

No, they did not teach it to the younger ones. Try again. Your ideas have gone beyond the absurd at this point.

While I agree that younger kids learn a lot of this sort of stuff (or at least the words, even if they have no idea what they're really talking about) from the older ones, I have serious reservations about it all stemming form Clinton's statement.

Cathy

That's odd, I thought I was reminding you that you're nearly a liberal. Trust me, I am NOT anywhere near being a conservative.

But this highlights a significant problem; there appears to be a considerable chasm between what liberals actually are and what conservatives have been trained to think liberals are. If one listens to/reads the polemics of, say, Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh, one gets a violently - in fact, viciously, distorted view of what liberals are. And these views of liberals appear to grow wings and are everywhere. People actually grow to believe that liberals are all atheist ("godless") baby-hating monsters of some sort when the polemicists of the Right don't get squelched by more rational voices from Right (are there any? If so, they're sure keeping very quiet).

And it gives the liberal cause for concern about whether or not the Right/Conservative point of view is grounded in reality when the polemicists take over as the primary mouthpieces for the Right. Surely SOMEONE should notice that there are an awful lot of Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers in the local church parking lot on Sunday mornings and say, "Hey, Ann, are you sure they're all Godless because they keep coming to my church and making the Communion line longer."

This is similarly true of differing opinions on the conduct of the War on Terror and the War in Iraq. It is thought somehow anti-American to oppose the War in Iraq and to question whether or not the War in Iraq is part of the War on Terror (it isn't), when most of the opposition is, in fact, in good conscience opposed to the conduct of the War in Iraq because it's bad policy. And, of course, it's does not appear to be working. And there is considerable conservative polemic regarding the unpatriotic Opposition when, in fact, it's a very healthy thing.

The reason for some of this is that Rightist/Conservative politicians have been deliberately casting the difference between liberals and conservatives (which, given the state of the budget no longer means what we thought it meant) as a values difference. And they do this with the narrow goal of achieving power/winning elections/gettnig better Nielsen ratings. To strive for these goals, rather than more common goals, is not good for the long-term health of the country.

And - people are buying it. People read Ann Coulter, they listen to Rush Limbaugh and they accept a lot of "information" about liberals that just isn't true. I've more than once told people in this NG that they ought to get their information about liberals from actual liberals because they don't seem to know us at all. In fact, all of the liberals I know are, more or less, like me. They have jobs (no welfare queens), they have kids (mostly, some don't), they care about the future. And we're getting thin-skinned about blatantly wrong and obviously unreasonable characterizations of liberals that are allowed to slide by unchallenged and it's making us grouchy and difficult to live with.

I find these considerations extremely frustrating and that often leads to a rant.

You're grasping at straws. Teens do hand down weird ideas about sex but they didn't get ideas about sex from Clinton. I've been trying to get the Scouts to watch the news (or, read the paper - good luck with that) for years and, for the most part, they just won't do it. They're getting their ideas from trash television or - worse - cable. I know several families who allow cable hookups in their kids' bedrooms; a v-e-r-y bad idea, IMHO. Go back and check the Niesens and see which TV shows are big. Those are the ones that influence kids. And, very often, Mom and Dad will watch shows that the kid shouldn't see, at least not without some explanation of what's going on, with the kid right in the room.

Wow - spot on, & you saved me a whole lot of composing & typing!

Cathy

The Einsteins here base their opinions on just one thing: If someone is not comfortable having a senile person running the country, a person who not one of us would hire in a corporate setting, we must be wrong, and we must be liberals. Since when does a desire for competence make someone a liberal?

Someday, if dbu and golf boy can prove they have normal adults sitting with them at the computer, I'll explain my plan for al Qaeda and the Taliban, and we'll see who's a liberal.

You've been absurd for a good many posts. You don't even know what a boss is.

Well you would be wrong....again!

I would suggest you talk to kids a bit....and get back to us!

The same can be said about what liberals have been trained to think conservatives are. We are not a bunch of selfish money-grubbing, careless, freedom-hating, racist, hypocritical God-fearing, gun-toting, wealthy, corporate fat cats. But if you listen to people like dizzy, JoeSpareBedroom, Learning Richard, etc. you would think all we care about is repressing the black man and killing innocent foreigners.

Both you and I know the truth lies somewhere in between what you describe and what I describe. We're all Americans and we all love our country, except for some crazy extremists we all know. The only difference we really should have is the methods of curing our national ills and that is why the arena of ideas should be the battle zone between us.

You and I have a lot more in common than you do with the above mentioned people. Drop me a line and I'll put you on my joke list and maybe we'll have dinner someday.

Tell JoeSpareBedroom that. Apparently he was never a teenager.

Depends what you mean by "believe the Bible". Today, only the willfully ignorant could take all of it literally. Being a "good Christian" means being a good person, not some fool who claims to believe the Adam and Eve and Noah's ark stories.

What is being a "good person" mean to you? You can't really be a Christian without accepting certain absolutes on faith alone. There is also much more to the Bible than the Book of Genesis. The Old Testament prepared us for the coming of the Messiah (Jesus) as much as the New Testament prepares us for the Second Coming of the Messiah in The Revelation.

Explain exactly what you mean by the "boss" statement.

Mine is 17. He exhibits no signs of the syndrome you've described. He's smarter than you.

Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Since dizziot and Little Richard don't accept him as Lord, I wonder what they think he is? Just a good man doesn't cut it on the face of the evidence. But then again, I think Josh McDowell covered this way better than I could.

Charles of Schaumburg

Are you saying that oral sex is sick and twisted?

You said "on the face of the evidence". What evidence?

And it was all good stuff, too! Why are people always snipping my premium rants?!

Sure. I'll e-mail you. Thanks.

And I was thinking of an appropriate, thoughtful, friendly, critical and self-critical (only when absolutely necessary) reply, to the effect that no, we don't demonize Rightists, at least not to the same extent, but that will wait for later because I noticed your 12/14 6:53am response to JSB in "Oh Boy, Look What George Did," which is straight out of the Ann Coulter playbook. JoeSpareBedroom's concern for adverse results of policy get morphed into, "You're the enemy, JSB." A habit of demonizing people who have deep reservations about Administration policies is unhealthy in a free nation because sometimes the Administration is wrong. By the way, your logic fails. See my response there.

The people are sovereign here. However, without as reasonably complete knowledge of what's going on as possible (sure, with some exceptions, made for legitimate security requirements) and a fully informed group of sovereigns ("the voting public") and an atmosphere for open, candid, policy debate, we may as well throw away the Constitution, disband Congress and the Courts, elect absolute tyrants for 4 years at a time, unless we're "too busy with a national emergency" and just hope that they don't skew the electoral processes to continually remain in power. The Founders would be aghast.

See:

Considering the way the ACLU has been hampering the government's ability to fight terrorism I find the below quote from your article apropos:

------------- "John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University, disagreed, saying that the subpoena was unusual but not improper and a sign of a moderate approach to a significant problem.

?Assuming it?s properly classified,? Professor Eastman said of the document, ?I actually think the government is bending over backwards to accommodate the A.C.L.U. rather than pulling the trigger in prosecuting them.?

-------------

The ACLU should change their name to the AQCLU.