You might be a right wing idiot if you say or believe this bs

[EFerrari]

This is a list of talking points the right uses to manipulate their base. They're untrue and they are meant to engender hatred and to raise money for Republicans. Any reasonable person could find the information that would disprove these ideas and with the net, almost immediately:


Poor black families can't stay together because they don't support their families.

WRONG. Poor black male youth are incarcerated at a rate that suggests a public policy to incarcerate poor black male youth. Ya think?


Undocumented workers from Latin America come north to steal the American Dream they haven't earned.

WRONG. Workers from Latin America come here when they have been destituted at home by the manipulations of the US government who has strip mined their countries for the last two hundred years.


Gay couples attack the institution of marriage and the American family.

WRONG. Gay couples and their families are entitled to the same civil rights as all Americans. They ARE the American family.


Women have abortions just to heedlessly kill babies.

WRONG. Have you ever met a woman who celebrated her abortion? Please, introduce me.


Homeless people are just lazy alcoholics.

WRONG. Homeless people don't have the luxury of sloth. They are too busy trying to survive.


Homeowners who are going into foreclosure just irresponsibly bought a house they couldn't afford.

WRONG. Ask Greenspan who encouraged families to take out those subprime loans and Junior who crowed over them. And tell me, did you read every word of your closing docs? Bet you didn't.


Iraqis aren't "standing up" so we can "stand down".

WRONG. They are too busy being killed, displaced. tortured or dismembered in the millions to reflect on Western political abstractions. Maybe if we stopped killing, displacing, torturing and dismembering them, they'd do better. :sarcasm:

[Hugabear]

1. Tax cuts help create new jobs and stimulate the economy

WRONG. These tax cuts go primarily to the richest and most well-to-do in our society, who put much of that extra money into savings and investments.

[EFerrari]

3. Let's grow the list, and I'll repost it.

:toast:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

49. They either sit on it or gamble it away.

They rarely, if ever, use it to create jobs in this country. Why would they? No one's making them. Back in the days of confiscatory tax rates they did use to reinvest in the economy to avoid paying them.

[DS1]

2. strip mined their countries?

I'm guessing this isn't a literal use of the term

[EFerrari]

4. The thing is, no matter what we accuse our government of doing

in Latin America, they've done it or are planning it. I honestly don't think that's an exaggeration.

LATIN AMERICA: New Gold Rush Runs into Opposition


by Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
April 12th, 2005

A surge in world gold prices is attracting U.S. and Canadian companies eager for another crack at the Latin American lodes that once enriched the Old World. But their modern-day methods -- strip mines and cyanide-based refining -- are meeting fierce resistance.

"The indiscriminate exploitation of our mines and forests with no ethical commitment is placing at risk the very purpose of creation -- human life and future generations," Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, warned last month.

The battle has mobilized Indian groups, environmentalists, farmers and religious leaders, and sometimes has turned violent.

In January protesters fired shots, threw stones and put up barriers of burning tires to stop a truck bringing equipment to the Marlin strip mine, owned by Glamis Gold of California, in the western Guatemala town of Solola.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12103

[RedCappedBandit]

27. I'd say its pretty damn true.

[BOSSHOG]

5. Great list and I truly love the nonsense about Gays

DIVORCE harms the sanctity of marriage. Who gets divorced? Gays or hypocritical religious zealous assholes?

If gays can't marry, christians should not be able to divorce. If gays can't marry or join the military they should not have to pay taxes. This is not a christian nation it is a free nation, except for those that christians don't want to be free.

[MagickMuffin]

6. How about this gem

Democrats and the Liberals are unAmerican, because they don't support the troops and our invasion of Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda, after Saddam caused 9-11.

WRONG: Saddam had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda and was not responsible for 9-11. Al-Qaeda wasn't even in Iraq until our invasion. We support the troops but don't support the WAR for PNAC, BlackWater USA, and Halliburton.

[EFerrari]

7. Good one.

"Democrats are weak because they don't support attacking innocent people who never harmed us."

:grr:

:kick:

[nichomachus]

8. My favorite: Undocumented workers

Undocumented workers come here (A) because they're lazy and want stuff handed to them for nothing and (B) they're stealing our jobs.

[EFerrari]

9. Don't forget, for the cheeseburgers.

:)

[nichomachus]

11. I can has cheezburger?

[Diclotican]

44. nichomachus

nichomachus

You never know, when it come to cats, They have a plan to conquer the world, and they are doing it, one cat of the time:freak: :tinfoilhat: :wow: Have a feline cat home, and sometimes I really believe she have some ugly thinking in her little head.. Scary when she look at you, with that glim in the eys..

And then she is there, normal lovely cat who are just that, a cat... Wonderfully amazing but free as the bird in the morning...

One cat I had once, have the habit of taking what he was killing inside the house.. Birds, mouse, well everything with four legs and smaller than him... Interesting to se, how many animals a cat can kill...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[EFerrari]

48. "One cat at a time"

:scared:

lol

[nichomachus]

10. Sex is dirty, disgusting, and depraved . . .

. . .and should be saved for someone we love.

[EFerrari]

12. I would think their punchline is

"when other people get it".

[Booster]

13. My favorite is about the homeless. I can't tell you how many times

I've watched a homeless person push around a cart and though to myself they're working harder than I ever did at my job. I always, always ask myself could I survive if I found myself in their situation. I'm not sure.

[EFerrari]

15. I know.

:hug:

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Our public schools are failing and most of the teachers are incompetent

Saw that one on DU today :puke:

[EFerrari]

17. What's the rebuttal? Don't want to put words where yours would be better.

[mopinko]

20. except the one my kid goes to.

so the polling shows.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. Destroying public education means we can spend all that money on vouchers

so our children can go to religious schools and not have to sit next to brown skinned children in those crappy public schools.

Sorry it is hard for me not to be sarcastic on this issue. It is all so fucking sad.

[EFerrari]

40. I know. I remember the beautiful public school I went to as a kid

and I feel like crying because it doesn't exist any more in that form. We had books and paper and a psychologist and a nurse and our class sizes weren't ridiculous and we had art and social studies and music classes and PE. We had great teachers and we couldn't wait to get to school in the morning. :shrug:

[Hugabear]

52. The rebuttal is simple - schools need more money

Sorry, but you can't improve schools by taking money away from them.

Honestly, I think that if everyone had to send their children to public school, then there would be a lot more vested interest in making sure these schools succeed. But as long as there is a "safety net", then there really isn't as much of a necessity to improve failing schools.

[RedCappedBandit]

28. Every day I read things on DU that I never thought I would.

This morning somebody posted that the majority of teachers abuse children more than abusive fathers.

WTF?

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. I know what you mean

In the last week, I have read that Hillary is the goddess of peace, immigrants come here to destroy the lives of working class Americans, most teachers are incompetent, and then in the middle of a thread celebrating Kansas's victory in the Final Four last night, this was posted:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3122695&mesg_id=3123225

It all just makes my brain hurt.

[MagickMuffin]

16. Here's another one

Africa Americans should be proud they got the chance to come here. We did them a favor.

WRONG: We forced them into slave labor while the White "Americans" made the laws that kept them enslaved for centuries. They were beaten down, forced to do long hours of back breaking labor tending the crops and other jobs the white man would never consider doing themselves.

[EFerrari]

18. And Jeremiah Wright is wrong to address anger.

Sometimes I think we should develop a helmet to hold our brains in when our heads explode.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

60. Reverend Wright is wrong....

to blame today's white people, implying that he's talking of ALL today's white people, for racism that was perpetrated by white people of past generations who are NOW ALL DEAD.

[booley]

19. These aren't meant to be rational arguments

They are meant to be emotional appeals, reinforcing the listener's prejudices and belief system.

All of the statements above can be seen through certain prisms of right wing thought.... The victim is to blame since society isn't at fault (If someone is poor, it must be something THEY did), that there is a natural hierarchy where some people get more advantages and then others (and so equality is an "attack" on those higher up the hierarchy) and Jingoism (well it couldn't be My country that did anything wrong. It must be those other countries)

While we can see that these are wrong even insane premises, it's also in large part because we have don't share the world view they do. And to combat their world view, we need to understand it, not just mock it.

[EFerrari]

21. I don't mock their world view. I just say it's bullshit.

It's factually incorrect at every point. (At least they're perfect in some way.)

And, it doesn't take very much understanding to see Republican operatives fanning hatred to fill their coffers.

[booley]

24. It is bullshit and factually incorrect

but that's besides the point.

Even we don't base all of our views on 'facts"

As for the republican operatives, that too is besides the point. If the hate wasn't already there, it couldn't be fanned.

[EFerrari]

39. Here, we disagree.

People are entitled to their opinion but they're not entitled to have those opinions given the same weight as facts.

Our willngness to grant the other guy the benefit of the doubt is fine UNTIL it gets used on us like a sledgehammer in those ridiculous non controversies the right is always setting up and pretending there are two equal sides to an issue.

There aren't two equal sides to everything. Some things are just wrong, like discrimination. It's not a matter of opinion. Discriminating against gays or women or people of color is wrong. It's not just "the conservative position". It's wrong.

Maybe I am missing your point.

/oops

[booley]

50. That's not what i was saying

A lot of those facts aren't facts, they are value judgments and interpretations.

Correct value judgments and interpretations, interpretations that best fit reality but still. We all base our decisions more on emotion and our values then on individual facts.

I mean, it's a fact that we could fix a lot of the fiscal problems in this country by turning senior citizens into dog food for sale. If you add the math, it would save us billions if not show a profit. yet no one would ever seriously take such a position. Not because it isn't factually true but because we find the idea abhorrent.

For us to be successful, we need more then just facts because facts aren't why someone is Conservative or Liberal. Part of the reasons the cons were able to convince people to buy their bull shit is because they understood this. And if we want to convince conservatives to become Liberals/Progressives (and we do if we want to affect change) we need to first understand where they are coming from.

Understanding where conservatism is coming from is not the same as giving them the benefit of the doubt. In fact, learning more about conservatism has made me even more Liberal as I truly began to understand what it stood for, it's goals and how out of touch with reality it was. Listening to someone does not mean you agree with them. Often just the opposite.

If we want to attack conservatism, we need to attack it's foundations, not snipe at sound bites.

Just my opinion.

[EFerrari]

51. Hatred is the foundation of the modern Republican party.

And pointing out their recursive hatred is not sniping, it's tracing the line of virulent manipulation from the origin to the intended end, which is control of groups of people via instilled fear and animosity.

But, you're right. I'm not really talking about facts as much as values. To hold a value, you need to exercise judgment and be able to interpret information. That's entirely true.

I understand that there are "conservatives" who believe they are for small government and fiscal responsibility and all of those innocuous sounding values. They are wearing blinders just as early members of the Nazi party believed they were rebuilding Germany.

In reality, conservatives in this country participate in group hatred and seek to seed their ideology, wittingly or not, in our culture. That they have succeeded so far as to have our Democratic front runners deny equal rights to, say, gay couples, is a measure of how successful they have been.

There are not two equal and different parties in this country. There are not two equally reasonable and divergent major political views (which is a shame). And claiming that there are is our founding mistake.

[booley]

57. yes and no

Hatred plays a part. but WHY is there hatred? hatred is a consequence, not a cause by itself. hate comes from somewhere.

In fact, hate is a poor way to define it. people hate for all sorts of reasons and some are legitimate.

After all, I know many here hate how the constitution is being subverted and hate the war and hate liers and war profiteers.

You have to attack the foundations of the hate you see in republicans while also reinforcing the Liberal values that counters it. Especially since Bigots almost never understand they are bigots. So pointing out they are hateful won't cut it. Because even if they admit they hate a certain group, they will still claim they have good reasons.

So attack those reasons. Like a lot of prejudice among conservatives is the idea that there is a heirarchy, a natural order to things. Not coincidently this idea is also prevalent in religion. Gays can't get married, you see, because that would mean a gay relationship is equal to a traditional man/women marriage.

So how can we show that this heirarchy idea is wrong while also reinforcing liberal ideas like fairness and empathy and the right of people to live their own lives?

"That they have succeeded so far as to have our Democratic front runners deny equal rights to, say, gay couples, is a measure of how successful they have been"

There's an even better way t judge the conservatives success... that the vast majority of Americans do not describe themselves as Liberals... but when asked what their individual beliefs and values were they had more in common with Liberals then conservatives. In other words, many people, including some conservatives, are actually liberal. The trick is getting these people to understand that.

[hunter]

22. Single payer universal health care is a bad idea.

WRONG: Getting good health care in the United States is a crapshoot even when you have money and good insurance.

Having good insurance and a deep wallet may tilt your odds a bit toward "adequate" by the standards of first world nations, but it also increases the odds that you will suffer some astonishingly expensive, inappropriate, and ineffective treatments.

[EFerrari]

23. But they'd frame it more hatefully.

"Universal health insurance is a socialist idea that has bankrupted Britain" -- or something like that.

They need to stick that anger/hatred in there to make it stick.

[hunter]

25. "Why should I have to pay for the healthcare of Christians!"

Nope, "Christian" is not one I've heard, but I've pretty much heard everything else.

It's always some kind of "us" deserving of good health care, and some "them" much less deserving of it.

[EFerrari]

26. I think you've got it!

[Initech]

29. Let's extrapolate that homeless point for a minute:

What these asshole conservatives don't realize is how many homeless are veterans. You know, the people THEY sent to die for our country, yet experienced severe shell shock because of the pressures of war? That part really gets under my skin. :grr:

[Alcibiades]

32. Some vets hate other vets

My Dad's a Vietnam vet, and there's a tremendous post hoc pissing contest about who got the worst of it. All those homeless vets are malingerers, or bums pretending to be vets after the fashion of Eddie Murphy in Trading Places.

Oh, and the ones who are not malingerers are drug addicts, which is their fault, of course.

The same guy thinks all government is evil and resents the hell out of taxes but does not mind getting checks from the government and free health care for life because "I earned it." How it is that the government is evil and yet the Army is somehow very, very good, or how government is evil yet our constitution and democracy are very, very good is never handled by the part of his brain that handles logical thought (95% of which has been taken over by the part of his brain responsible for playing craps and horse racing),

Dad's had the chance to vote for Vietnam vets twice for President now, and he went Republican both times. I think he'll stay home rather than vote for McCain.

[EFerrari]

37. Mine too, EOO.

:grr:

[Alcibiades]

33. You can balance the budget by cutting taxes

Nobody takes this bit of supply side economics seriously anymore, but it's still there, vestigially, in the Republican mindset.

[EFerrari]

35. Omigod, it sure is! Did you notice that as soon as we got the majority,

the Republicans started screaming about how we raise taxes?!

Bush has been ripping them off three ways to Sunday but WE are going to raise their taxes. lol

[Alcibiades]

55. And people have apparently forgotten

That the whole argument behind supply side economics was that the Laffer Curve meant that lower rates would increase revenues by "stimulating" investment. Of course, the Laffer Curve's functional form was always simply assumed to be a parabola with a 50% tax rate at the apex, with tax revenues increasing at rates lower than that point and decreasing after, as diminishing returns "encourages people to forgo income." The empirical and theoretical work done in this area shows that this is simply not the case, but supply side simply got added into the ideology of conservatism without keeping up on the economic literature on the subject. Then, slowly, it would seem that the supposition that revenues would increase at lower rates was dropped from their mindset, and they simply adopted tax cuts as a cure-all. We've been on the left-had side of the curve for many years, and their model has been falsified by history, but they persist nonetheless, showing that ideology trumps common sense yet again.

[BlooInBloo]

34. Wonder what the unemployment rate it among undocumented workers?

Is it *literally* zero, or just stupidly close to it?

It also deserves to be noted that undocumented workers are IMPROVING Social Security:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/sensible-centrist-crisis-manufacturing.html

[EFerrari]

36. They steal our jobs AND they're shiftless and lazy.

lol

[BlooInBloo]

38. And disease-carrying!

[EFerrari]

41. Disease carrying AND they get free healthcare.

They won't speak English AND they overcrowd our schools.

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

43. And the crime! Oh noes!

[Richard Steele]

42. K&R

[mrreowwr_kittty]

45. "The rich pay more than their fair share in taxes. They need more tax cuts."

WRONG. The top 1% of the country has about 45% of the total wealth. The rich get more back in terms of government services than what they pay in. They benefit from infrastructure, our education system, law enforcement to protect their property, a court system to enforce their contracts, the military to protect their overseas investments, etc. They need to pay more than they are paying right now. Probably a lot more to even come close to a semblence of fairness.

[Greyhound]

46. I've seen point #6 parroted here dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

It is this mindset, that is so prevalent in the US, that has convinced me that the only practical solution is to just get the hell out while there is still time.

[EFerrari]

47. It's like it's in the water or something. That's why I put up the OP.

I remember those threads with hundreds of posts arguing that people who were preyed upon by criminal lenders were at fault for -- being greedy or uppity or whatthehell. :shrug:

[Greyhound]

56. And this from the nominal "liberal" Democrats. n/t

:puke:

[Brewman_Jax]

53. Here's another RW favorite...

"those people" do the jobs that Americans won't do.

WRONG! They do the jobs that Americans won't do for minimum wage--or less.

[EFerrari]

59. Or for nothing as we know from slave camps being discovered

in Florida, I think, South Florida.

And that's why bringing them into unions is the only real solution that makes sense and that puts power back into the hands of working people -- as the SEIU is doing in Los Angeles. (I hope I got the acronym right!)

[Ishoutandscream2]

54. The Republicans are fiscally responsible and want less govt.

False. Republican presidents Reagan, Bush, and W incurred more debt in their administrations than any others. They also rarely submitted budgets to balance the budget.

[Echo In Light]

58. "They are too busy being killed, displaced. tortured or dismembered in the millions to reflect on...

...Western political abstractions." Well said.