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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (441884)	8/12/2003 7:21:25 PM
From: FastC6	Respond to of 769667

no morals, no self discipline, selfish, naive sh*theads.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (441884)	8/12/2003 8:06:19 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

What makes a Neocon? Kevin Rose August 12, 2003 Why do people hold neocon-right positions? (Neocon and right were once very different, but not anymore.) This question has plagued me because I have long believed that most people, liberal or conservative, mean well. Very few people wake up in the morning planning to harm society. Yet, many neocon positions -- I emphasize neocon positions rather than conservatives because most people who call themselves neocon do not hold most contemporary conservative positions -- have been wreaking havoc on America and the world. How, then, can decent and often very smart people hold neocon positions? There are many reasons, but the two greatest may be naivete and narcissism. Each alone causes problems, but when combined in the same person, they are particularly destructive. At the heart of neoconism is the naive belief that people are basically bad. As a result of this belief, neocons always blame someone else for the evil in the world. Nothing is ever their fault; it is always someone else, or something else, that causes evil in the world. A second naive neocon belief is that because people are basically bad, fighting with people who do evil is always better than talking, let alone dealing, with them. "Destroy Saddam," "Destroy the Soviets," "War first," "Screw peace," "Visualize world dominance" -- the neocon mind is filled with naive cliches about how to deal with evil. Indeed, the very use of the word "evil" greatly disturbs neocons. It shakes up their child-like views of the world, that everybody is at heart an evil person who is ready to kill them or take their toys away. "Child-like" is operative. The further right you go, the less you like growing up. That is one reason so many white males are on the right. Never leaving their sheltered existence from kindergarten through adulthood enables one to avoid becoming a mature adult. It is no wonder a prominent neocon 'author' has recently argued that liberals are traitors. She knows in his heart that she is not really an adult, so why should she engage in a serious reasoned argument about her opponents? The second major source of modern neoconism is narcissism, the unhealthy preoccupation with one's things and one's positions. We live in the Age of Narcissism. As a result of unprecedented affluence and luxury, preoccupation with one's physical possessions, and a hedonistic culture, much of the West, America included, has become almost entirely wealth-directed. That is one reason "money" and "weath" are two of the most often used neocon terms. "Generosity" and "understanding" are no longer neocon words because it implies self-restraint. "Justice and fairness" are not neocon words either as they imply a moral standard that requires compassion and equal opportunity. In assessing what position to take on moral or social questions, the neocon asks him or herself, "What's in it for me?" or "Will I lose some of my wealth?" not "What is right?" or "What is wrong?" For the neocon, right and wrong are dismissed as unknowable, and every person must chooses their morality. A good example of neocon narcissism is the neocon position on abortion. For the neocon, the choice of bringing life into the world is not up to the mother, but to the neocon. If the neocon decides that life begins at conception, then all other viewports are swept aside in favor of their narrow view. There are not many antidotes to this lethal combination of naivete and narcissism. Both are very comfortable states compared to growing up and confronting evil, and compared to making one's feelings subservient to a higher standard. And comfortable people don't like to be made uncomfortable. Hence the neocon attempt to either impose the Judeo-Christian code on all public life regardless of diverse views. Nothing could provide a better example of contemporary neoconism than the neocon battle to push the Christian-centric Ten Commandments into all public places. Neocons want theocracy, not the separation of Church and State desired by the Founding Fathers.

To: PROLIFE who wrote (441884)	8/12/2003 8:13:34 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Typical stereo typing that serves only to further the hatred of those that are opposed to war when it's not a last resort. People do not fit into neat catagories like the author of the tripe you posted suggests. Ideologies form a spectrum of ideas. The Ten Commandments are a religious writing. We are guaranteed by the Constitution to have separation of church and state. To allow the display of religious writings in public places is a violation of the Constitution. But by freedom of religion you are welcome to display a copy of the Ten Commandments at your place of worship for all to see. And the Muslims can then display their codes of conduct at their mosque. And the Jews theirs at their Synagogue. But please, no religious artifacts on public property. Out of respect for all religions, none shall be displayed. This is the vision of the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution. Orca

To: PROLIFE who wrote (441884)	8/13/2003 12:20:17 AM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Coulter's 'Treason': Examining Liberal Sympathies David Limbaugh Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2003 At a time when our nation is under attack and forces are determined to destroy it, it might serve us well to examine the mindset that many believe has been historically slow to recognize threats against this nation and even slower to act on them. Instead of just reading the critical reviews of Ann Coulter's [49]"Treason," read the book itself. Put aside her metaphorical indictment of liberals as treasonous. But do read the historical accounts she relates. Read the book, then ask yourself how the deplorable actions of certain Communist enablers can be justified, no matter what you think about Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Ask yourself how anyone can call himself a patriot and still defend some of this despicable behavior. But before you read it, remind yourself that since roughly the late sixties, the counterculture (which has now ascended to the popular culture) has contemptuously lampooned any suggestion that Communism was an international menace a threat to world peace and freedom. Liberals used to sneer sarcastically that conservatives could find a Communist "behind every rock." For the longest time many clung to the fantasy that Soviet Communism was a benign force. They scoffed at the notion that Soviet and Chinese Communists were behind the North Vietnamese incursion into South Vietnam. They belly-laughed at the "paranoid" Cold Warriors who took the Communists at their word that they sought world domination. They viewed the United States as the aggressors in the nuclear arms race and advocated that we implement a suicidal nuclear freeze based on the good intentions of the Soviets. These were people who saw America, not the Soviets, as imperialistic. Again, no matter what you've heard about McCarthy, irrefutable evidence exists that he was correct that there were many Soviet spies in American government. And you certainly can't dismiss this as no big deal under that eternal principle "no harm, no foul," because there was harm. The Rosenbergs alone, as Coulter says, "spied on their own country and turned over atomic secrets to a grisly totalitarian regime that would threaten American citizens with annihilation for the next 50 years." Yet many liberals defended them to the end. Indeed, many of those who most vigorously opposed Communism in this country were reviled and demonized more than the Communists themselves. Irrespective of whether you believe certain Communist "hunters" committed excesses, should you excuse the actual traitors themselves (here I'm referring to Soviet spies in the bowels of our government)? What would motivate people to defend the indefensible? Indeed, the greatest irony of the McCarthy chapter of American history is that it has been rewritten to protect those who protected America's enemies. And please don't say that liberal sympathy for the bad guys was motivated solely by their instinct to protect innocent individuals from "McCarthyite" tactics. The Alger Hiss affair preceded McCarthyism's seminal event: McCarthy's "notorious" Wheeling, W.V., speech, in which he claimed that 57 Communists were in the State Department. The Alger Hiss affair began when ex-Communist spy Whittaker Chambers accused his former friend Alger Hiss of being a Soviet spy. Read and lament how the liberal establishment circled the wagons in defense of this Communist and maliciously assassinated Chambers' character for exposing one of their darlings. Read how after Chambers produced his smoking gun, the Pumpkin Papers, liberals persisted in defending Hiss. Read how even "On the day of Hiss's conviction ([of perjury for lying about being a Soviet spy], Jan. 25, 1950, [President Truman's secretary of state] Dean Acheson announced at a press conference, 'I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss.' " Read Coulter's delicious revelation that both the Washington Post and the New York Times, as late as 1992, and again in 1994 in the Times' case, were still running stories defending Hiss. To the everlasting shame of these two newspapers, in 1995 the results of the Venona Project (the decoding of Soviet cables during the Cold War) were made public, indisputably proving, among other things, that Hiss was a Soviet spy. There's so much more in Coulter's book. Read it. Liberals have been quick to castigate others for their alleged excesses. In "Treason," Coulter has exposed them for their own excesses in naturally jumping to the defense of those who sought to harm our nation. If they had any legitimate defense for their behavior, perhaps they would quit bashing Coulter and present it. Don't hold your breath. Copyright 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. newsmax.com