cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.
we follow attaturk’s lead in answering for ourselves, point by point, joe klein’s definition of left-wing extremists:
a left-wing extremist exhibits many, but not necessarily all, of the following attributes:
–believes the united states is a fundamentally negative force in the world.
no. we believe this specific administration’s greed and innate distrust of other races and cultures is a big problem for world peace, and in fact for the continuation of the american way of life as we know it (borrow-and-spend republicans have a lot to answer for to their grandchildren).
–believes that american imperialism is the primary cause of islamic radicalism.
no. we actually believe that over-population has given rise to fundamentalism which also involves the active warring against differing cultures, no matter what religion the fundamentalism is derived from.
— more after the jump —
–believes that the decision to go to war in iraq was not an individual case of monumental stupidity, but a consequence of america’s fundamental imperialistic nature.
nope. you put it pretty succinctly with the words “monumental stupidity,” but only if those words include “greed for oil production at any cost” in their definition.
–tends to blame america for the failures of others–i.e. the failure of our nato allies to fulfill their responsibilities in afghanistan.
what?
–doesn’t believe that capitalism, carefully regulated and progressively taxed, is the best liberal idea in human history.
what regulation? what progressive taxation? the first is gone, the second is actively being attacked on a regular basis by those in charge. you might as well say we don’t believe the horse and buggy is a good method of transportation.
–believes american society is fundamentally unfair (as opposed to having unfair aspects that need improvement).
nobody short of karl marx believes that. or as attaturk said to you (and here we must search for the word “attaturk” on the swampland page, as they have no specific links to comments) in his response to another point on your blog entry: “no, you jackass, what a strawman statement.”
–believes that eternal problems like crime and poverty are the primarily the fault of society.
there’s a new gal in town, joe, called “nuance,” she’s a cousin to “complexity.” we’d suggest you look her up, but she’s probably out of your league intellectually.
ok, snark aside, crime and poverty can be obviously linked to social infrastructure. we go along with avedon (again, search for “avedon”) who told you “government policies do, in fact, influence how much crime and poverty exists in a society. lbj’s great society programs cut poverty in half, for example. crime goes up as money becomes tighter on the lower rungs of society. any first-year sociology student could tell you that.”
–believes that america isn’t really a democracy.
only in the same way that you aren’t really a journalist.
of course america is not really a democracy, but it’s as close as reality is going to get. unless we have a 1000% way of ensuring every vote is counted, and nobody ever will be able to because the murphy’s law corollary of good intentions makes sure that reality just doesn’t work that way.
we would not swear to the words “really a democracy” if we were in a court of law. but if we were in a court of law you would have been cited for contempt back around point 3 or 4.
–believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.
nobody does, please refer back to attaturk’s strawman comment.
what is fundamentally evil is greed, which, when coupled with de-regulation and a dearth of ethics and compassion, usually leads to trouble, whether on a corporate, civic, familial or just two-guys-at-a-poker-table level. humans will try to get as much for as little as possible, and when combined with unfettered power on an international scale, that leads to some darned messy situations.
–believes in a corporate conspiracy that controls the world.
this is getting silly. please refer to previous comment, and throw in attaturk’s “you jackass” response for good measure.
along with greed, humans are by nature eventually distrustful and stupid in groups. world-wide conspiracies tend to disintegrate the longer they try to endure, be they at a corporate, religious or governmental level. too many people to keep too many secrets, and remember, those people are greedy and distrustful and stupid.
–is intolerant of good ideas when they come from conservative sources.
no. we are willing to listen to any good ideas. and we are still waiting.
seriously, what “good ideas” are you talking about? the war in iraq? the tax reform? de-regulation? we see nothing but disaster coming out of all of these. show us a good idea, we’ll listen.
–dismissively mocks people of faith, especially those who are opposed to abortion and gay marriage.
if folks put forth their faith as a basis for public policy, then their faith becomes fair game for examination. it’s not our fault that most tennants of faith, when spoken out loud, sounds ludicrous to another person. the personal aspect of faith is kind of the very definition of what faith is.
as we’ve said elsewhere, we are tired of hearing about people who believe literally that god will lift them up out of their clothes into the sky when the dead walk the earth and jews spontaneously combust, and then we get called “the looney left.”
–regularly uses harsh, vulgar, intolerant language to attack moderates or conservatives.
you must have written this before coulter at cpac, or else you’re being funny, right?
