I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a liberal concede a point in my entire life. It’s like searching for Atlantis or something. But I do want to respond to a few random comments on this thread, if you’ll all permit me.
@ 14 Sheesh: “Republicans have plenty of money. They got no style or sense of humor or imagination, but they got plenty of money.”
Like you I also don’t know where to begin, but I know where to end: “They got”, do they? Your contrived deployment of incorrect grammar does not confer upon you any self-aggrandizing liberal cool nor make you belong to a social class that is not yours to choose. Membership in a social class is never a choice, that’s what makes it a class and that’s what confers the “cool”. As to your point, I’m a Republican, I’m not wealthy, but I do, in my own humble opinion, have style, humor, and imagination. You, however, appear to buy into and perpetuate stereotypes, not sure your chosen interest groups appreciate stereotypes generally speaking. But you’re doing Alinsky proud buddy! Keep on keeping on.
@ 55 David S: I don’t always disagree with your comments. But I’ve read many and I just have to ask: “A necessary war does not require the fabrication of evidence.” Name me one war that you would have made a decision to engage in. Just one. I’ve always read you as a collectivist/environmentalist/socialist/pacifist. Here the pacifist is relevant, because if you are, it’s disingenuous to discuss the concept of a “necessary war”. Maybe I’ve got you all wrong!
Alston: My man. “I too view it as absurd but because it’s a mathematics problem: by definition, half of us are below average.” I have seen you cop an attitude about data and math and presume you believe you reside comfortably on one side of the proverbial Bell curve. But since you brought up math, I must correct that you mean (pun intended) the median, rather than the arithmetic mean that most laymen associate with the term “average”. And still, you may even mean one less than “half of us”, depending of course on whether there is an even number of people and who if anyone might exactly be “average”. I bring this up because I don’t believe many of us should pontificate on the academic qualifications of others, specifically, or en masse. After all, someone smarter than you who has your own apparent narcissistic intellectual bias might actually think that your incorrect use of “average” and “half of us” means you yourself should go to trade school, but don’t worry — the condescending way in which you distinguished “college” and “trade school” is unfounded, and there are many many people at trade school that are a fair amount smarter than many many people at college. Please tell me you have not had the same experience, if you have actually known anyone who went to trade school (where numbers and precision of language are often just as important, sometimes more so, than college).
But I’m nit-picking really, because I frequently agree with your points on this blog. Except, I have to disagree with you on this one. I think it’s a bit naive to pronounce that social dogma should be abandoned by Repubs in order to achieve victory and influence and appeal. I share your disdain for it, don’t get me wrong — but the fact is, the Repubs need social conservatives or they don’t win, this bloc is simply not going anywhere and conservatives are simply not going to splinter enough moderates from that single-issue knee-jerk consortium that is the democrat voting public. If Repubs punt social conservatives, they lose, and that is the sad irony that provokes a guy like me more often than not to support candidates like Huckabee et al. I much prefer Newt truth be told, but what can I say, I’ve matured. Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I think instead you should be prescribing a course of action designed to successfully turn out the religious right in a way that is least offensive to independents. If people are anti-religion or pro-environment, anti-baby, whatever their single issue is, they simply will never vote republican. They are not tolerant of other people’s views. But I hear you on all points, I’ve long thought that the party needs to tone down the religious dogma. And tone it down is what they need to do, not abandon it. And I secretly hope that when W picked a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as a religious right issue, he knew full well that was never going to happen, but he advocated it to get the critical amount of base out. Shrewd, and the right course of action I think.
