I accept that there are degrees of left and right, and that you position yourself in the “sensible middle.” But I don’t agree that liberals are “far left.” That territory’s mine, brother. People on the left think liberals are best described as “center-left” and way too often cave to attacks and demands from the right. Liberals are seen by the true left as soft and too willing to compromise.

You’d be surprised, George Soros is actually a solid liberal — not the radical leftist Fox would have you think. He’s a total believer in the free market, which is where he made his own money, and he hates Communism, which he was born under in Eastern Europe. When the Soviet Union collapsed he put millions of dollars of his own money into pushing the Eastern bloc to adopt “our” system. They did, and Rumsfeld seems to think Eastern Europe longingly looks to the US more than Old Europe. Conservatives portray Soros as being farther left than he actually is in order to undermine his credibility with the mainstream. (Of course none of them have ever done half of what he has to transform formerly Communist dictatorships into capitalist free market democracies, but that’s not the point when you’re in shout-fest talk radio showbiz.) They do this because he is one of the biggest benefactors of the Democratic Party and it’s in their interest to paint him as an extremist.

ANSWER, Code Pink, etc, these groups are in fact further to the left than Soros and wouldn’t consider themselves “liberal.” So your characterization of them is fair. Except they do not “hate America.” Michael Moore is a populist and ANSWER and Code Pink are modern versions of ’60s protest groups. They certainly hate Bush, but they don’t hate the country. Let’s be fair. Ward Churchill is an extremist and I won’t try defending him here, even though I think in America you should have the right to say what you want.

I do agree with you on one thing. The Democratic party certainly has been hijacked by interest groups. These are usually single-issue groups, like pro-choice groups or environmental groups who don’t care about anything else aside from their agendas. Add to that an entrenched Democractic establishment of a few rich donors and strategists who are only concerned about “electability” (remember when they decided Kerry was “electable”? Whhaaaat??) and what you get is total incoherence. Married white men have a hard time relating to the party because they don’t see where they fit , since they’re generally not part of one of the interest groups. To win them back the Democrats need to start talking comprehensive big-picture stuff, not minutae driven by one constituency or another.

But come on, the right talks as though Democrats would purposefully destroy America and then shit all over it if only they had the chance. Let’s get real. Democrats, even the rag-tag interest groups, at the end of the day are regular Americans who worry about their phone bills, drive cars with leaking radiators, love running around outside, and hand out candy to kids on Halloween just like anybody else. They are not sub-human “freak shows.”

Well, nobody’s enslaving me and feeding me regurgitated worm vomit, fun as that sounds. I don’t register with any political party. I always vote and it’s always a choice between a candidate who sucks ass and a cadidate who sucks tremendous ass. Which is why I never vote Republican.

The cardinal rule of the left; People are pawns,burdens and useless.

It underscores every reaction(They think they analyze,but analysis is cerebral,not viscral. They have to ”problem”

Thats why people need big government programs for everything under the leftist mindset. Of course the real masters the super rich liberal realize this is crap,so they manufacture it. If they didn’t,someday someone might ask why they should listen to Kerry,Kennedy,etc. about anything-because like Marx they talk alot about employment and work but avoid it like the plauge.

The poor common folk are to be kept in government “schools”. To be indoctrinated into spineless, sloth and self pity, stripped of their dignity and self worth. Make them slaves by telling them they are to be mastered by their passions,not to be masters of their passions.

That way when it comes time to vote, they are reduced to baby birds in nests responding to the politician with the most regurgitated worm.

If you pummel them enough, they wont even realize they are eating vomit.

That is from a fellow who seems to know the reality of the wine and cheese set.

You are right I put words in your mouth. This is because by ommision you infered that it is liberals who are for the common man and conservatives are for big business, I don’t think it was much of a stretch for me to come to this conclusion after reading your post. Of course I over dramatized a bit as we all do. I was trying to get you to see my point.

As I stated earlier there are many degrees of liberalism as well as many degrees of conservatism. On the left you have hate America groups like ANSWER, code pink, Michael Moore, Ward Churchill and his ilk etc . On the right you have The bible thumpers Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc Most Dems and reps/libertarians fall somewhere inbetween. I still claim tht the far left and special interest groups have hijacked what used to be the party of the common people. Look who the major financial player in the democratic party is right now George Sorios. You can’t get much further to the left than him. Yet he and his group are the ones forming and driving the policy in the democratic party at present time.

I agree with many liberals on what is good for the nation, but I disagree on the approach. The private sector can and will do more to alleviate the many problems we have. Yes some will profit more than others and some will abuse the system. Do you really think big Govt can do a beter job? Sorry the answer is no. The govt financially rapes us constantly, stealing our money for more failing social programs of which almost none have proven to be effective. Especially when you figure in the cost.

Yes I’m appalled at the churchy crowd who try and legislate what people can and cannot do in the privacy of their homes. Singing patriotic songs should never be mandatory. I would be against any law that would force this on the people. Are you appalled at the secular elitests who do things like pulling the plug on a young women valedictorian. who had the audacity to thank god for her success in overcoming a hard life filled with many trials and challenges. Are you appalled at the far left taking over our universities and establishing speech and thought codes reminiscent of 1936 Germany or communist Russia. Free speech has effectively been banned on many campuses.

Of course conservatives don’t want to live in pools of toxic slime, and neither do liberals. Yet conservatives (especially libertarians) are often opposed to environmental regulations, while liberals support them.

Environmental problems are a good example of what economists call “the tragedy of the commons.” Avoiding the overuse of an environmental resource depends on the collective action of everyone who uses it. If consumers acted together, they could make sure to use enough water so everyone got their fair share but not so much that the well dried up. But no single user has an incentive to reduce his consumption, so collectively the resource gets used too much. The same goes for air pollution. Everybody wants clean air, but no individual manufacturer has an incentive to reduce its emissions. So while everybody wants clean air, everybody continues to pollute, and we all end up with global warming.

These are the kinds of situations in which liberals support government regulation or taxation to correct for the failure of the market. Government intervention can make the individual, private cost of using water or polluting the air reflect the collective cost to society. This mitigates against the problem of overuse by private decision makers.

Conservatives oppose this view. They insist that the market alone will solve the problem. More specifically, libertarians object because they generally believe government should not intervene in public affairs at all (except, usually, in the case of national defense, although libertarians are also usually isolationists in foreign policy).

In your post you put words in my mouth, essentialy accusing me of saying conservatives drink the blood of malnourished babies. I had to laugh, but come on man, do you really think I believe all that? If you go back and read my post you’ll see it’s entirely about liberals. There’s not one attack against conservatives. For the record it’s you who brought up the idea of conservatives being haters. Bitter, angry, mean: every family’s got the sourpuss who’s colder than a witch’s tit.

Your underlying theme is that liberals are rich elitists living in privlidged enclaves that are totally out of touch with the rest of the country (the shorter way to say this is “wine and cheese”). What I’m pointing out is that this description of “liberal” has only to do with social class — social class defined by consumption habits. It has nothing to do the cannon of ideas developed by the likes of John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and John Dewey that a liberal believes in. To be a liberal is to believe that the state has a role in providing positive liberty (freedom to achieve certain ends; negative liberty is protection against external coercion) for individuals. Liberals support a greater degree of government intervention in the market, anti-discrimination laws, universal education, progressive taxation, and believe government should provide for a degree of general welfare, including benefits for the unemployed, housing for the homeless, and medical care for the sick. This is the platform of the Democratic Party. It has nothing to do with being rich or eating cheese.

And the reason I cited the Pew Research Center study (which by the way is actually an impartial, non-partisan source) was to show that the people who support these ideas — Democrats — are “African Americans…a plurality of Hispanics, city dwellers, union workers, whites who earn less than $30,000 per year, singles, widows and divorced people, and single moms.” Hardly a wine a cheese crowd.

The stereotype just doesn’t hold. It describes a small number of clueless Hollywood stars and self-absorbed postmodern academics, but has nothing to do with the masses of ordinary working people who belong to the party of liberalism — Democrats — and struggle like everyone else and love their country like everyone else.

I suspect there are probably things we probably do agree on. I’ve worked in the heart of the ghettos in north Philly and I fully agree citizens there are not well served by their local Democractic leadership. The blowhards and bimbo environmentalists in Hollywood are a joke, just like their shitty movies. Big business doesn’t give a damn about the American blue collar worker if it can make a quick buck by moving production to China and padding the pockets of upper management.

Here’s one more: as a libertarian you should be apalled by the churchy crowd insisting on interfering with people’s personal business, from what kind of video games a 16 year-old kid can and can’t play to the private sexual choices of consenting adults, to demanding we all sing patriotic hymns in public school.

Anyway, while you go kick a kid in the gutter and pollute the Merrimack, I’ll put on my pink fairy tutu and make a friendship cheese plate for Osama.

You claim liberals want a fair society in which everybody has a chance. So do conservatives. So what’s your point? You claim liberals believe in environmental standards that prevent big business from polluting the environment that we live in. Most conservatives I know also like to live in a clean environment and also support common sense environmental standards. So once again I ask what is your point?

You claim liberals want to make sure workers get decent health coverage.

Again so do conservatives. They tend to think it may be better done through the private sector. Again what is your point? Liberals believe in things that big business doesnt (maximum profits) in short liberals stand up for the little guy.

I got news for you big business is made up of liberals and conservatives. As to liberals not believeing in business making big profit,here is where conservatives probably differ with liberals. Conservatives think it is ok for big business to make maximum profits because in so doing they are probably creating new jobs for the little guy, and affording higher wages for the little guy, and also letting the little guys profit sharing rise. So in short the conservitive is for standing up for the little guy. So finally I will ask again what is your point? 9 of 11 richest senators are democrats. So much for the little guy.

Reading your opening you are suggesting conservatives would like to see an unjust society where only the rich business man can succeed all others must fail. Conservatives would also like to have an environment that is polluted with toxins and the water. Is unfit to drink causing us all to die within a few generations.

We would also like to see people dying in the street. or perhaps performing operations on themselves.

And last but not least we would like to see big business make zillions and zillions of dollars leaving the rest of us in abject poverty. lLving in the streets.Our children dying of fammine and disease. Only the liberals can save us from the evil conservative.

You forgot a few. Liberals care about minorities. Liberals care about women. Liberals care about the children, and liberals care about gay people.

Lets see. Conservatives hate minorities they would like to see a return to slavery, conservatives hate women they all belong in the kitchen. conservatives hate gay people. (read the bible) although secretly many admit they have attended an Elton John concert. And as unbelievable as it may seem they even hate children. No rational reason is given for this.Leading conservitaves say it is probably due to a gene that most conservatives have whereby they are predisposed to hate everyone. But some say it is due to the loss of unskilled labor jobs. Children can no longer be used by big bussiness for cheap labor.

Some of The wealthiest areas of the country are Boston, NYC, most of the north east and parts of California Berkley, Hollywood etc.All are heavily democratic. The wine and cheese steryotype has been effective because it is true to a large extent. Have you ever been to Cambridge? The rich, eliteist, far left east and wast coasters drive the dem party. It is not the middle of the road dem who has the power. Just ask Joe Lieberman. Blacks and minorities vote dem because they have been bought off and brainwashed. How are the 100% democratically controlled cities of Detroit,WashingtonDC, Gary, Newark,Philly(only 300 murders) etc etc doing .Yes blacks in these cities are thriving under democratic leadership. The only people making money in these places are the funeral homes.

Once again my original post was made part in jest and fun. There does seem to be some thin skinned people. Thats ok. Please excuse me I have to go kick a kid to the curb, and pollute the Merrimack river. While I’m at it I may try and deprive some minoritiy of a civil right or two. Us conseritives are such a mean evil lot. By the way I like to think of myself as libertarian. They hate everyone including big business.

To the definition/characterization of liberals in her/his (?) penultimate paragraph, I would add only this:

“African Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats, as are a plurality of Hispanics, city dwellers, union workers, whites who earn less than $30,000 per year, singles, widows and divorced people, single moms, and, even wealthier people imbued with the human gift called conscience”.

(With due thanks to Garrison Keillor, of course!)

Liberals want a fair society in which everybody has a chance. Liberals believe in legal protections like environmental standards that prevent big companies from polluting the environment the rest of us live in, and making sure workers get decent health coverage. Liberals believe in things that big business (which is interested in maximum profits) doesn’t. In short, liberals traditionally stand up for the little guy.

So where does the phrase “wine and cheese liberal” come in?

This is a phrase introduced by business interests on the right to discredit people with liberal ideas who are unsympathetic to corporations. Suddenly being a liberal is not about supporting a just society and making sure everyone’s got a chance. Instead a liberal is somebody who consumes elitist products, preferably imported from France whenever possible. It’s a sly trick, because it puts liberal people in the position of the rich upper class businessman — the guy in the Lexus with a trunkload of brie and his stock broker on the cellphone who represents a system liberals object to.

The wine and cheese stereotype has been so effective that we might think all Democrats are a “tax-raising, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show” (to quote the famous right wing attack ad on Howard Dean).

Now compare that stereotype with the reality as described by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, based on emperical research:

“More whites consider themselves Republicans rather than Democrats. Pluralities of suburbanites, Protestants, married people, and those from households with incomes of $30,000 or more also self-identify as Republican… In contrast, the Democratic party is more attractive to less wealthy and minority segments of the electorate. African Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats, as are a plurality of Hispanics, city dwellers, union workers, whites who earn less than $30,000 per year, singles, widows and divorced people, and single moms.”

A political scientist at Washington University in St Luis has conducted an interesting new study on the popular journalistic image of rich latte-drinking Democrats and poor NASCAR Republicans, and finds one reason that it persists is that in the wealthy coastal states where the media are located class is less of a predictor of party affiliation that in the rest of the country.