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DaveJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 07:58 AM
Original message
Question/observation about cons' use of the word 'liberal'
Edited on Thu Jun-30-05 08:00 AM by djohnson
Sorry for bringing up this dreary tired old subject, but I just had another epiphany.

It's a rhetorical question that I wanted to pose toward bush-bots, but thought I'd run it by you guys first.

As we know, wing nuts use the term 'liberal' in a negative way, counter to it's actual meaning stated in the dictionary. Actually, it would seem that they consider the term 'liberal' to mean anything that's bad in government and society.

I would like to ask them in a tongue and cheek sense, maybe to get across their absurdity: is there anything bad that wingnuts would not consider liberal????
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BurgherHoldtheLies Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:03 AM
Response to Original message
1. Liberal is not a 4-letter word...but BUSH is
:P
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Bluerthanblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:44 AM
Response to Reply #1
15. thats a great Bumper sticker idea-" Bush is a 4 letter word" n/t
.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:05 AM
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DaveJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:37 AM
Response to Reply #7
11. They have a persecution complex...
Ironically, they bring their persecution complex upon themselves. They create a society of laws and rules that tells them anything they do is bad if it's out of lockstep with the others.
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Iris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:38 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. It's just getting more and more twisted.
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TheFarseer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:05 AM
Response to Original message
3. It is their catch all word
Do you suppose earthquakes and tornadoes are liberal? I was going to use aliens invading the planet and killing everyone for my example but then I quickly realized you could easily blame that on liberals and our communist NASA if you wanted to. Doesn't even take much imagination.
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DaveJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:18 AM
Response to Reply #3
8. Well, ya...
I guess they would consider a tornado or earthquake to be liberal weather! :shrug:

Cons' perversion of the English language may have worked for them for a short time, but I believe it will come back to haunt them after they realize how stupid they sound.
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havocmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:48 AM
Response to Reply #3
16. Earthquakes & tornadoes are Liberal when they happen to them. When
Edited on Thu Jun-30-05 08:48 AM by havocmom
they damage other people's property/lives, they are proof that God is punishing those people for not living properly! ;)

edit: typo
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KharmaTrain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:07 AM
Response to Original message
4. Even Better...Ask Them To Define A Liberal...
Listen to all the buzzwords and talking points dump out like...and how conveluted their definition is. There's a good chance they'll hit on something that you can easily pounce on as a liberal cause that they support.

Then next, ask them their definition of a Conservative. If you think your mind was melded with their attempts at "liberal", the next answer will boggle you even further.

Then, throw them a real curve...ask them to define: Progressive.
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ms liberty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:32 AM
Response to Original message
9. Anything they disagree with is liberal...
and anyone who is to the left of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson is a liberal, too.
So basically, anything or anyone they don't like is liberal.

Kinda like how people way back in the day thought a ship would fall off the edge of the world if it went far enough east.

Wait...these nincompoops still think that!
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LynnTheDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:33 AM
Response to Original message
10. Dissent with bush = "liberal". Look who rightwingnuts call "liberal"...
calling "liberal";

Even Britain has more favorable view of CHINA than of US;

Support for the U.S.-led war on terror has dipped in European countries like Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Spain, while it remains low in the Muslim countries surveyed like Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/06/23/national/a110236D49.DTL

'War on terror' losing support world-wide

Support for the US-led war on terrorism has been falling even among some of the United States' closest allies, an international poll found.

Support for the Iraq war is even lower.

In most of the countries surveyed, people rejected President George W. Bush's claim that removing Saddam Hussein from power has made the world safer.
http://www.news24.com/News24/AnanziArticle/0,,1518-1785_1726500,00.html

Pakistan president Musharraf: World more dangerous because of Iraq War
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/25/03544/7945

Poll: Support For a War With Iraq Weakens Among Americans

Seven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that found growing doubts about an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
http://middleeastinfo.org/article1795.html

Dick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary:

If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?

How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2072479

President GHW Bush, 1998;

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
http://www.rense.com/general43/quote.htm

Brent Scowcroft, one of the Republican Party’s most respected foreign policy advisors, and national security adviser under President Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush:

Don't Attack Saddam It would undermine our antiterror efforts. "Our pre-eminent security priority--underscored repeatedly by the president--is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133

Norman Schwarzkopf - Four Star General:

"The general who commanded U.S. forces in the 1991 Gulf War says he hasn't seen enough evidence to convince him that his old comrades Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz are correct in moving toward a new war now. He thinks U.N. inspections are still the proper course to follow. He's worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq….(And don't get him started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52450-2003Jan27?language=printer

Col. David Hackworth

"Should the president decide to stay the war course, hopefully at least a few of our serving top-uniformed leaders - those who are now covertly leaking that war with Iraq will be an unparalleled disaster - will do what many Vietnam-era generals wish they would have done: stand tall and publicly tell the America people the truth about another bad war that could well lead to another died-in-vain black wall. Or even worse."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29786

James Webb, former Sec. of Navy under Ronald Reagan, Decorated Marine Veteran:

"Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years? …In Japan, American occupation forces quickly became 50,000 friends. In Iraq, they would quickly become 50,000 terrorist targets…. Nations such as China can only view the prospect of an American military consumed for the next generation by the turmoil of the Middle East as a glorious windfall."
http://www.sftt.org/article09302002a.html

Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former Head of Central Command for U.S.:

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot, and are hot to go to war, see it another…We are about to do something that will ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started."

Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.

"I'm not sure which planet they live on"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/10/17/zinni

Republican Dissent on Iraq
Full page ad in Wall Street Journal by major GOP contributors:


"Mr. President, …The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back…. A Billion Bitter enemies will rise out of this war."
- Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2003
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/001444.html

Republicans Who Voted Against Iraq Resolution Tell Why
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/11/194543.shtml

TOP REPUBLICANS BREAK WITH BUSH ON IRAQ STRATEGY

Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/11/194543.shtml

Republican congressman Ron Paul
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002.htm

Retired general William Odom, former head of the National Security Agency:

"Right now, the course we're on, we're achieving Bin Laden's ends…. I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defense and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Retired General Joseph Hoare, the former marine commandant and head of US Central Command:

"The idea that this is going to go the way these guys planned is ludicrous. There are no good options. We're conducting a campaign as though it were being conducted in Iowa, no sense of the realities on the ground. It's so unrealistic for anyone who knows that part of the world. The priorities are just all wrong."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091704Y.shtml

Col. Mike Turner (ret), Schwarzkopf's personal briefing officer during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm:

“The uniformed Joint Staff in the Pentagon strongly opposed this plan early on...The uniformed Joint Staff was overridden, yet in so many horrifying ways this operation resembles Somalia, not Desert Storm...Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely...Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN...The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens...”
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/transcripts/2003/mar/030311.turner.html

US Air Force General, Tony McPeak, a four-star general who headed the U.S. Air Force during Operation Desert Storm:

McPeak served four years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff advising Bush’s father and then President Clinton after flying 269 Vietnam combat missions and participating in the Thunderbirds, the elite aerobatic team.

McPeak believes that President Bush should publicly admit personal failure. He claims Bush has botched the crucial process of coalition-building, has not enlisted the United Nations, and has failed to rebuild Afghanistan as a model of reconstruction.
http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=57303%3Ehttp://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=57303%20

Retired Envoys, Commanders Assail Bush Team
Administration Unable to Handle 'Global Leadership,' 27-Member Group Asserts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46538-2004Jun16.html

Growing GOP Dissent On Iraq
Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/07/politics/main610787.shtml

Republican Rep. Bereuter: War in Iraq not justified

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action. That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said.

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."

As a result of the war, he said, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Republican Rep. Doug Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/08/18/top_story/10053833.txt

And things still aren't going very well;

Republican senator Chuck Hagel, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee;

"No, I don't think we're winning," Hagel told a CBS interviewer. "We're in trouble, we're in deep trouble in Iraq."
http://www.iht.com/articles/539563.htm

Republican senator Richard Lugar, Foreign Relations Committee chairman, was asked on ABC why only $1 billion of the $18 billion appropriated last year for Iraqi reconstruction had been spent.

"Well, this is the incompetence in the administration," he replied.
http://www.iht.com/articles/539563.htm

Even Mr. "Freedom Fries" himself; REPUBLICAN congressman Walter
Jones;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1491567,00.html

"LIBERALS" sure are a vast world majority. Rightwingnuts are obviously just a wee tiny little fringe focus group, say the rightwingnuts.
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hexola Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:40 AM
Response to Original message
13. I'm so sick of these bleeding-heart Conservatives!!!!
Hows that...? turn it around a little...
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havocmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:51 AM
Response to Reply #13
18. You forgot 'Knee-jerk'.
Knee-jerk bleeding heart Conservative. ;)
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HeeBGBz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:42 AM
Response to Original message
14. Some smart thinker on another board posted a good piece
We were discussing what makes a person liberal. She posted all the antonyms of liberal from the dictionary. Which turned out to be...


Hard, rigid, strict; doctrinal, dogmatic; bigoted, intolerant, narrow-minded; reactionary, conservative, conventional, nonprogressive, old-fashioned, orthodox, traditional, stingy

So if you aren't these, you must be liberal.
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 09:07 AM
Response to Reply #14
19. Or how about the synonyms?
Advanced, broad-minded, enlightened, flexible, free, high-minded, humanitarian, impartial, interested, magnanimous, rational, reasonable, receptive, reformist, tolerant, unbiased, unbigoted, unconventional, understanding, unorthodox, unprejudiced, et cetera.
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elperromagico Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 09:10 AM
Response to Reply #14
20. And while we're at it... Synonyms for "conservative":
Bourgeois, cautious, fearful, fogyish, fuddy-duddy, guarded, hard hat, hidebound, holding to, illiberal, inflexible, middle-of-the-road, obstinate, old guard, old-line, orthodox, quiet, red-neck, right, right-wing, timid, traditional, traditionalistic, unchangeable, uncreative, undaring, unimaginative, white bread, et cetera.
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cally Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 10:10 AM
Response to Reply #14
21. I used that in my signature line
I hope that's OK
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Bluerthanblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 08:50 AM
Response to Original message
17. liberal = free and
if 'they' hate us for it, then what does that make them???

The folks who would destroy America???
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DaveJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jun-30-05 10:14 AM
Response to Reply #17
22. Yes
I'm convinced that those at the top are deliberately acting against the public's best interest.
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