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2003-04-07 - 10:54 a.m.
I'm not sure if there are liberals and conservatives as such anymore. At least not in terms of what those two labels orginally meant:
"The Big Tax Bite You Don't Even Think About" in The Washington Post, April 23, 2000:
"America's new political center, reflected in the growing number of independent voters, is surprisingly broad and deep. Some 35 percent of Americans now describe themselves as independents, compared with 33 percent who say they are Democrats and 31 percent who identify as Republicans, according to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month.
Together with large numbers of centrist Republicans and Democrats, these independent-minded voters are neither conservative nor liberal in the traditional sense. Rather, they represent a genuinely new center in American politics -- one whose agenda lies outside left and right as opposed to between them. These new centrists are socially tolerant yet supportive of law and order, fiscally conservative but accepting of government intervention for economic fairness or security, concerned about the economy yet worried about the environment."
But what I've come away from watching this war is this, the "conservative", flag-waving, support-the-troops/president crowd is not gonna be swayed. So all of the anti-war protests, and all of our head shaking is really preaching to the choir.
Unlike "liberals", whose whole problem with this war in the first place for the most part, the "conservatives" couldn't care less about the consequences, economically, socially, or diplomatically, of engaging in this war.
No matter how you couch the doubt about the wisdom of this war, you're branded a pussy, un-patriotic, or worse, a traitor. Facts mean nothing to these boneheads.
Alledgedly these people are not stupid, but they will not be swayed from their dogma no matter what scenarios you present them with. If the facts are not from their right-wing-goodhousekeeping-seal-of-purity sources, they dismiss them as untrue.
That's not to say that there's not skewing of stats by the left, nor that there's not an agenda for the liberals. But it seems to me that except for the rabid far-left, most liberals and moderates take the time to think about consequences beyond some hatred of "sand niggers", and the personal vendetta of the Bush family.
There's no reasoning with someone who shouts at anti-war protestors through a bullhorn, "who do you support, the Republican Guard? BS, that's BS!...", etc. There's no reasoning with people who say, "If you're not with us, you're against us."
And yet when I talk with people around me, most people are against this war. Not the troops fighting it. Not in any way supporting Saddam Hussein. But not having a war.
For me, it's not so much the allied (what coalition?!) troops or civilian deaths. It's a war, that stuff is unavoidable. It's the fact that GWB started this war in the first place. There wasn't, and still isn't a legitimate reason for us to attack Iraq.
Like the man said, the Japanese who ordered the pre-emptive strike on the US during WWII were hanged as war criminals.
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So, how do you like them apples?