She's quite correct. We have to get a LOT more militant about it. And relentlessly, too.

And it's really put us, and our country, our whole society, at risk. We've been WAAAAAY too lax on fiercely protecting the ground we've gained, at the same time that we have adversaries who are out for blood, around the clock, and NEVER rest or relax or savor what they've won. They're ALWAYS on a rampage. Which means we also ALWAYS have to be on guard. We can't just roll over and go back to sleep once some law has been passed or some new civil right has been secured or beneficial new program has been enacted. We have to back all of those up with determination and force, and be The Firewall From Hell to the bastards who would send us careening back in time to some imaginary utopian Beaver Cleaver America that never really existed (except for a very lucky and wealthy few).

We have to be combatants - on offense, not reacting or playing defense. Proactive like we've never been proactive before.

Scuba, I think your liberal sister just summed it up REALLY succinctly. Just NAILED it in a way I've not seen put to words so basically.

"Damn the Republicans and their long-term strategy -- makes me think of JFK's book 'While England Slept.' We've been doing our liberal thing -- live and let live -- while they've been taking over the weak minds of weak people."

We've been doing our liberal thing -- live and let live... I think that sums it ALL up.

Funny thing since you mention "live and let live." Anybody here old enough to remember the whole Anita Bryant mini-travesty? The one-time Miss America second-runner-up (she was Miss Oklahoma), became a pop singer and variety show staple during the '50s and '60s, a conservative Christian who made her religion part of her public persona, and later, a Florida orange juice spokesperson, who shot herself in the foot with the public in the late '70s when she careened off into this rabid nationwide anti-gay crusade. She was the bane of civil rights and gay rights advocates everywhere, and her strident anti-gay activism eventually killed her career. Her first marriage ended in divorce, and it was rumored that one of her sons was gay, although I can't find anything concrete to back that up. If anything, her oldest son was actually a LOT more tolerant and liberal than she was on the subject of gay rights. Even he once commented that he thought the rough times she went through after she stuck her neck out had forced her to rethink her extremism - by saying she learned to "live and let live."

In a 1980 Ladies Home Journal interview, following her divorce and in the aftermath of her anti-gay activism, Bryant commented on her anti-gay views and said, "I'm more inclined to say live and let live, just don't flaunt it or try to legalize it."[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant

Kind of weird - you look at her photos in this Wikipedia write-up, and if you put eye-glasses on her, you'd have sarah palin.