zenmaster10665

Kooks


Unbelievable. What a bunck of kooks.

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"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut

radioguy

i absolutely love election time!!! all types of stories come out of the woodwork, including this one. i'm not shocked they did it, i'm just surprised they actually ADMITTED something. usually, it's all about skirting the truth.

onetime2

Seems like quite a slanted story with lots of "They basically said" rather than direct quotes. But hey if you want to take paraphrasing as a source who am I to stop you.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

FoolThemAll

Yeah, this is a horrible article. Not a single mention of how the republicans "demonized" homosexuals.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

TheKak

I didn't see the part about homosexuals but I did see the picture of the Bible with Banned written on it. I couldn't help but to chuckle to myself, knowing that some people will actually believe that Democrats would really try to ban the Bible. Quite rediculous.

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cthulu23

Actually, the article is full of direct quotes so I don't see what you guys are complaining about as far as source materical is concerned. But here's another article that is a little heavier on details:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...=694&ncid=2043

Hmmm, sounds like the usual scare tactics. turn middle of the road Democrats into scary radicals with nary a concern for the truth. Accusing Democrats of wanting to ban the Bible? Where the hell does that come from?

Let's just turn this around and imagine that the Democrats had sent out a mailing accusing Republicans of wanting to institute Biblical law and to have homosexuals put in camps...I think that the outrage would be sharp and immediate, including people from the left. Can we please look past partisanship and call dirty politics what they are?

filtherton

Hooray for american politics. Killing optimism, one day at a time.

MSD

http://images.themaxx.com/mirror.php...20Arkansas.jpg

Won't allow image leeching, switched to link.

shakran

I can. Y'all know I'm far from republican, but I call a big steaming pile of bullshit on this one.

In the first place, PC is the rage (unfortunately), and the republicans would be STUPID to send out stuff like this. The whole reason they whomp the democrats as much as they do is because they're far from politically stupid.

cthulu23

Shakran,

This has been on many major news outlets and the Republican National committee has confirmed it.

from http://www.iht.com/articles/540458.html
Still sound like steaming bullshit? Maybe you've been overestimating the Republican noise machine.

Edit: Is it PC to try and correct distortion and fear mongering? Why is is that leftwing, Democratic or any "progressive" stories seem to be subjeted to a greater standard of truth in this forum? Has anyone else noticed this? Even 100% accurate stories are immediately called bullshit, as if the source material wasn't even read.

irateplatypus

hmm...

well, it does seem to have actually happened... but the first article cited was very poorly written. barely journalism. it's difficult to have any strong feelings about these things in a partisan sense because both sides do it so some extent and most people are only interested in pointing out the transgressions of the opposition.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

cthulu23

Although both sides certainly do "spin" issues, this is a pretty egregious example of total distortion perpretrated by the National Committe of the Republican party. If the DNC had done something like this, the collective howl of American conservatives could be heard on the moon.

shakran

yeah the original article does sound like bullshit. There's a difference between "demonizing homosexuals" and banning gay marriage.

After all, I'm not allowed to ride my bike on the interstate, but that doesn't mean the government is demonizing bicyclists.

cthulu23

Ummm, that's not what the flier was about at all. It used the specter of gay marriage as a scare tactic to generate votes. Using gays as an anonymous fear generator does stink of a measure of "demonization" and Republicans have a poor history of tolerance to homosexuals. Couple this with the BS claims of "Bible banning" and we have a perfect example of meaningless propaganda.

Comparing traffic laws to civil rights is incorrect and callous. "Blacks want to ride at the front of the bus? Well, I can't ride on the hood of my car!" See what I mean?

irateplatypus

the DNC does do stuff like this all the time.

-"If you elect a Republican, another black church is going to burn"

-"Missouri Republicans have a plan, you're not a part of it" (on a bill board showing a picture of a african-american family)

-That one commercial few years back with some cute little girl asking for more [insert toxic substance] in her drinking water (i forget the chemical).

i'm not sure how loud the howl is on these, but these are several examples of the dnc doing just that. i've heard very little condemnation of these ads from democrats so i can't help but chuckle a bit when a big deal is made of a GOP controversial ad. what a world.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

maximusveritas

Do you have a source for that? I searched but could only find it coming from Hannity and he's not too reliable.

I do agree that both sides use scare tactics, but its usually based somewhat on reality. I don't have a problem with using the gay marriage thing, even though Kerry is really against it, because there are quite a few Democrats who are 100% in favor of it. On the other hand, suggesting that Democrats will ban the bible is a pure lie and crosses the line in my opinion.

FoolThemAll

That's still really weak. It's not "using the specter of gay marriage as a scare tactic", gay marriage really is seen as a danger to society in much of the republican party. It's not a scare tactic if a danger is genuinely believed to exist. It's a huge stretch to try to find demonization in this.

As for the Bible thing, someone correct me if I missed something, but it seems like a metaphor for organized prayer being banned in public schools. If so, that's much, much less of a stretch than the 'demonizing gays' thing.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

cthulu23

From a similar RNC radio ad:

None of these things is in the DNC platform at all. This is Christian misinformation worthy of Jack Chick.

Yes, both sides do resort to fear mongering, but these particular ads seem to go above and beyond the typical bullshit. They abuse spirituality, a deeply personal issue, to futher their agenda. It's strange how many Christians don't act very Christ like.

cthulu23

Except that the Democrats aren't pushing gay marriage at all. The issue can only hurt them this election year. That doesn't stop the propagandists, though. Lot's of people will believe this, just like lots of people still believe that Iraq was involved in 9-11.

You're calling me weak with an excuse like this?

FoolThemAll

Kerry certainly isn't pushing it. But aren't quite a few other democrats? Edwards? Nevertheless, I see your point. I suppose it does count as a scare tactic.

However, the case for homosexual demonization remains weak. This only strengthens the argument (pretty well, in my estimation) that republicans here are dishonestly demonizing democrats. While wrong, this contrasts with the original claim in being completely unsurprising. Politics involves mudslinging between political groups? Wow.

It's speculation, admittedly. You can take it or leave it. I'm simply saying it's possible that this particular part of the propaganda was more a matter of hyperbole through imagery, than deliberate misrepresentation. Rereading that second article, a more likely speculation would be that the banned Bible image represented alleged democrat efforts to remove the word God from the pledge, money, ect.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

jb2000

Lot's of people really believed that Reds were infiltrating all corners of our society and trying to undermine American society, so I guess McCarthy didn't use any scare tactics, then.

Are you really saying that it is completely unreasonble to respond to Republicans working against numerous gay issues--from marriage to employment to protection from crime--by saying that Republicans are anti-gay or demonizing gays; yet its fine for the Republicans to say that the Democrats are going to ban the Bible, as long as its just a metaphor for Democrat opposition to prayer in school?

FoolThemAll

To your question: no, it's not fine. But as I understand it, they didn't say that dems are going to ban the Bible. If they did, okay then; they were wrong to do it. If it was hyperbole as I imagine it was, that's wrong as well, but to a lesser degree.

And I said nothing about employment or protection from crime. I was speaking of gay marriage alone.

If McCarthy had good reason to believe what he said about the level of infiltration, then he did not use scare tactics. Perhaps we have different ideas of what a scare tactic constitutes; I consider dishonesty to be part of it.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

cthulu23

You are right that it's possible to interpret it that way....that's what plausible deniability is all about. Considering the lack of subtlety and the tone of the ad, I sincerely doubt that the creators of the it intended for the citizens of West Virginia to think "well shucks, some Democrats do seem very concerned with prayer or religion in public institutions...how does that jibe with free speech" rather than "holy jesus, lock the doors cause the queers are coming for our bibles!!!!!" It's nice to see that the "America under Assault" meme hasn't been limited to foreign policy matters.

cthulu23

I understand that you are trying to be balanced here, but I would be careful before defending McCarty. Remember that his name became synonomous with witchhunt. He had no problem destroying lives with slander and innuendo, finally sealing his own fate when he grew arrogant enough to accuse the Army of being infiltrated with communists. It's only today that enough time has passed between that era and now that kooks like Ann coulter can try to salvage his reputation without being laughed at openly. Make no mistake, the man was alcoholic, self-serving scum.

Edit: it's possible and common to couple scare tactics with reality. In fact, those are the most effective scare tactics...for example:

"There were n muders in the US last year, a decline of x%"

versus

"There were n murders in the US last year! A man is not safe in his own house! Vote for me and I'll personally disembowel criminals"

These aren't great examples, but I hope you see what I mean.

FoolThemAll

Well, that's where we differ. I find it much, much more likely that they intended the "well shucks, some Democrats do seem very concerned with prayer or religion in public institutions...how does that jibe with free speech?" Especially since that is what's verbally mentioned by them (with no mention of Bible banning) in that second article:

I think they're deserving of the benefit of the doubt in this particular case.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

FoolThemAll

Which is why I qualified my statement with an 'if'.

edit: To clarify, for any incidents in which McCarthy made these accusations without good reason, he was guilty of scare tactics. And probably slander as well.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

jb2000

They put a picture of the bible with "Banned" stamped across it, and put it as the goal of the Democrats. I'm not sure how much clearer you can be.

We have no way of knowing what went on in the man's head, nor what any of the current leaders of the Republican Party have going through theirs.

I did notice that you were careful to qualify your statement about McCarthy, but not about Republican leaders. You assume that the Republican attacks on gays are because they legitimately believe their own words, but yet you don't extend the same benefit of the doubt to Mr. McCarthy. Why is this?

I prefer not to debate what a person does or doesn't think inside their head, as I have no way to know anyway. What I can go off of is what they say and how it fits into the situation.

Republican attacks on gays by portrayal of them as representing a threat to our society and culture is indeed a scare tactic. So is Democratic portrayals of the Bush Doctrine respresenting a threat to a peaceful, cooperative global community.

Both are definitely feared amongst their respective groups. Even the leaders making those portrayals may legitimately believe them. And ultimately they may well be true. But they are still scare tactics.

jb2000

Does merely believing it constitute 'good reason', or is more presentation of evidence required? Not saying one way or the other, but just clarifying.

FoolThemAll

Ooh. I'm sure that there are republicans that are against gay marriage solely because they believe homosexuality to be immoral. Because I've heard them say as much. But I do believe that there are republicans that don't base their opposition to gay marriage on any notion of homosexuality's being immoral. Because I've heard them say as much. I base it on their stated reasons, provided they aren't self-evidently false and are backed up in some reasoned way.

I don't really know much about McCarthy, to be honest. Perhaps if I did, I wouldn't consider him a user of scare tactics. That's not to say that I wouldn't consider his tactics to be of another deplorable kind, perhaps.

Replace 'gays' with 'gay marriage', and I don't consider either of those to be scare tactics. Nor do I have a moral problem with either. You're right, it can't be known for certain what people actually think when they speak. Thus, it can't be known for certain if one is using a scare tactic. But when you expand the definition as you did, to include all statements declaring that a given stance/action is dangerous, you end up categorizing nearly all publicly announced disagreements as scare tactics, and the word loses its weight. Scare tactics no longer are necessarily a bad thing.

So what would I consider a scare tactic? Person A makes a negative false statement B about an action/stance C. If it turns out that person A had prior knowledge that statement B was false, or is unable to provide backing of any kind for statement B, then it's a scare tactic. It might be a scare tactic if there is backing for the statement, but the backing is very easily debunked.

Hope that clarifies it all.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

cthulu23

Why do scare tactics have to be false? Exaggeration is probably more common in fear mongering than outright lying, for obvious reasons.

FoolThemAll

Certainly. But I tend to think of exaggerations as statements that are partly false.

"Democrats want to ban everything remotely religious from the public sphere" is an exaggeration because it's not completely true (far from it), and it can't be reasonably backed up, so it's a scare tactic.

I'm analyzing my idea of scare tactics as this goes along, to see if it makes complete sense, so I appreciate the criticism.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

cthulu23

As long as you are interested, for an example of an anti-gay scare tactic practiced by Falwell, Robertson, et al, on the 700 Club they would show excerpts of and sell copies of videotapes containing scenes from a Gay Pride event in San Francisco. The footage of almost naked men and women dressed up in outlandish costumes and hamming for the camera scared the bejeesus out of some segments of middle America. In reality, there is a huge measure of camp and the playing up of stereotypes at these events but Mr and Mrs Smith from Topeka might not understand this. By taking the event out of context and providing scary narration, Falwell gets to implant an image of that as the standard gay lifestyle and completely befuddle his audience..."Satan must be inspiring them....look at the men kissing and gyrating suggestively!"

So I guess that this is an illustration how you can amplify fear simply by showing someone or something different without providing any understanding of what they are viewing. This plays off of the base xenophobia that seems near universal in humans.

cthulu23

Looks like it's meant to spur on legitimate debate to me /sarcasm

Ustwo

Well ironicly the add is pretty much true to form.

Liberals hate religion as a rule, at least as taught in the bible, and want to see gay marriages.

Is it over the top? Sure, but its more right then wrong.

Look at the bottom of that flier.....

Removing 'Under God' from the pledge of allegiance - True.
Allowing teenages to get abortions without parental consent - True.
Overturning the ban on the hideous procedure known as partial birth abortion - True.
Allowing same-sex marriages - True.

You see folks the reason you are reacting so strong to this is that its true. This isn't the typical baseless claim that liberals make about conservatives, this is a vaild point that liberals know they can't defend so they act outraged as if bringing these things up is somehow wrong.

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Journeyman

"Liberals want to impose their values on Arkansas."

What... the... fuck? Did conservatives forget the definition of impose?

Under God: Religious value, currently being imposed on public school students.
Partial birth abortion: So fucking hideous it's usually only used to save the lives of the deliverers.
Same-sex marriages: Religious value currently limiting marital freedom amongst homosexuals.

Can't really back up the teenage abortion deal. The right to privacy, I don't think, extends to limiting what a parent can know about their under-18 children.

cthulu23

Liberals hate religion!?! What are you talking about? You are either trying to bait someone here or you are completely blinded by your own ideology. Come to think of it, what is a "liberal" anyway? Do you really think that "we" all march in lockstep and want gay marriage (probably a minority view), to remove "under god" from the pledge (defintiely a minority view.), partial birth abortion (the very use of that title implies a conservative slant)? I am more "liberal" than most (I prefer the term progressive, since liberal has ben ruined by propaganda), and I know full well that most Democrats disagree with me on very many issues. Are any of the aforementioned issues part of the Democratic platform? I suppose that doesn't matter to you, as you already know what "liberals" want, even though you don't seem to respect them or understand them.

Ustwo

The problem is most liberals don't argue from that stance. Lets take a look at Tom Daschle as an example. He acts like a conservative when he gives speeches at home and a liberal when he is in the senate. Dick Durbin, a senator from my state, does the same thing. The problem I have with liberals are they don't present themselves as liberals. If you want all those things SAY it to the people. Say 'I want to get rid of under god in the pledge' or 'I want to allow gay marriages' or 'I want your 16 year old daughter to be able to get an abortion no matter what you have to say about it!'. The problem of course is they would LOSE so they pretend to be something else. They let liberal and unaccountable judges do their dirty work for them. They rely on the basic nature of the American people to not pay attention to what their congressman votes for.

This is why three times as many Americans say they are conservative as compared to say they are liberal. Liberal is a dirty word, it stands for things the public does not want, and since they can't get it democratically they try to back door their agenda.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

OpieCunningham

Ah. I see how it is. The liberals do want all those things the flier said. Just because they never say that's what they want, doesn't mean Ustwo doesn't know the TRUTH about what they want!



Nine times out of ten, you make up statistics.

cthulu23

And if conservatives said "I want to put the interests of the rich before the middle class" or "I want to allow corporations to pump dioxins directly into your bedroom" or "I want to justify the invasion of Middle East countries by lying to the American people" or "I want to cite God for political purposes while ignoring the basics tenants of the teachings of Jesus (tolerance, peace, forgiveness)," I suppose that they would LOSE as well.

Does this vapid oversimplification of conservative beliefs sound fair to you?

hannukah harry

there's a reason that a lot of liberal politicians don't campaign on these things... because to them they're non-issues. you don't hear anyone campaigning on right to privacy (the 16 year olds having abortions issue) and gay marriage didn't really pick up until after the last election (as far as i noticed).

i bet if you went around and asked a bunch of liberals if they think that "under god" should be in the pledge, most would say no (not because they hate religion, but because of seperation of church and state). but ask them if they really care about it being there, again, they'd probably say no. it wasn't an issue until the dude in california made it one. no one cared before then, most still don't.

i love how you bring up activist judges. you know what i call an "activist judge?" i call one "someone doing their job." a judge is job is to run their court room, make rulings on cases, and interept the law when questioned. it's not like these judges are randomly picking pages from a book of law and saying "hey, lets question this one today." someone is bringing it to them and then they interpret the law and make a ruling. but appearantly if you happen to disagree with their opinion, that makes them an "activist." and you and the ignorant masses have fallen for a sound byte.

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