Things Liberals Believe in

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

THings Liberals Believe in.

====================

1. People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding

Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and the entire Bush family are liberals?

Obama the addict is.

What about these addicts: Rush himself, Jeb Bush's daughter, W, Cindy McCain. Were they - to use Rush's words - sent up the river?

They're not running for president.

This thread is not about who is running for president but about what liberals supposedly believe in. I thought you're all about staying on topic. Hypocrite.

[NickD 203]

Being a liberal doesn't sound bad to me.

"Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.[1] Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment.

Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy, and a transparent system of government.[2] All liberals — as well as some adherents of other political ideologies — support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.[3]

Liberalism rejected many foundational assumptions that dominated most earlier theories of government, such as the Divine Right of Kings, hereditary status, and established religion. Social progressivism, the belief that traditions do not carry any inherent value and social practices ought to be continuously adjusted for the greater benefit of humanity, is a common component of liberal ideology. Liberalism is also strongly associated with the belief that human society should be organized in accordance with certain unchangeable and inviolable rights. Different schools of liberalism are based on different conceptions of human rights, but there are some rights that all liberals support to some extent, including rights to life, liberty, and property.

Within liberalism there are two major streams of thought which compete over the use of the term "liberal" and have been known to clash on many issues as they differ on their understanding of what constitutes freedom. Classical liberals believe that the only real freedom is freedom from coercion.[4] As a result, they see state intervention in the economy as a coercive power that restricts the economic freedom of individuals. They favor a laissez-faire economic policy and oppose the welfare state; their brand of liberalism is often called economic liberalism.[5]

On the other hand, social liberals argue that governments must take an active role in promoting the freedom of citizens. They believe that real freedom can exist only when citizens are healthy, educated, and free from dire poverty. They generally favor the right to an education, the right to health care, and the right to a minimum wage. Some also favor laws against discrimination in housing and employment, laws against pollution of the environment, and the provision of welfare, including unemployment benefit and housing for the homeless, all supported by progressive taxation."

LIBERAL IS SHORT FOR LIBERTY!!!

[dalegg 143]

Classical liberals believe that the only real freedom is freedom from coercion.[4] As a result, they see state intervention in the economy as a coercive power that restricts the economic freedom of individuals. They favor a laissez-faire economic policy and oppose the welfare state; their brand of liberalism is often called economic liberalism.[5]

LIBERAL IS SHORT FOR LIBERTY!!!

It's their fault!!! Damn liberals!

[SaadBell 0]

She stole, that alone should have landed her some time in the big house.

How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction

When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate's wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Amy Silverma

Oct. 18, 1999 | PHOENIX -- GOP presidential candidate John McCain's wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on "Dateline") and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization.

It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do.

It was also vintage McCain media manipulation.

Also Today

No place like home?

While his campaign is gaining some momentum in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina, Arizona Sen. John McCain is locked in a tough primary fight in his own backyard.

By Mike Murphy

I had d�j� vu watching Cindy McCain on television, perky in a purple suit with tinted pearls to match. It was so reminiscent of the summer day in 1994 when suddenly, years after she'd claimed to have kicked her habit, McCain decided to come clean to the world about her addiction to prescription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. She granted semi-exclusive interviews to one TV station and three daily newspaper reporters in Arizona, tearfully recalling her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had stolen the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The local press cooed over her hard-luck story. One of the four journalists spoon-fed the story -- Doug McEachern, then a reporter for Tribune Newspapers, now a columnist with the Arizona Republic (and, it must be added, normally much more acerbic) -- wrote this rather typical lead:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain's unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy's secret would have stayed secret if John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.'s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn't heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.

Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski -- Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower -- Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

It's a story of unintended consequences. It's also a story of power politics and media manipulation that's very un-McCain-like -- if you believe his national media hagiography.

But both of Cindy McCain's staged, teary drug-addiction confessions have been vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want.

McCain did it with the Keating Five, and with the story of the failure of his first marriage (Cindy is his second wife). So what you recall after the humble, honest interview, is not that McCain did favors for savings and loan failure Charlie Keating, or that he cheated on his wife, but instead what an upfront, righteous guy he is.

Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished. John McCain shoots from the hip -- but only after carefully rehearsing the battle plan, to be sure he won't get shot himself.

This is the story of a time that strategy backfired, and yet the McCain machine still managed to contain the damage.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

THings Liberals Believe in.

====================

1. People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding

Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and the entire Bush family are liberals?

Obama the addict is.

What about these addicts: Rush himself, Jeb Bush's daughter, W, Cindy McCain. Were they - to use Rush's words - sent up the river?

They're not running for president.

This thread is not about who is running for president but about what liberals supposedly believe in. I thought you're all about staying on topic. Hypocrite.

No, I'm not, idiot. You didn't mind discussing drug addicts until I brought up the FACT that your precious Obama is an addict. Can't get more hypocritical than that.

Edited October 21, 2008 by Virtual wife

[HAL 9000 96]

ZZZzzz...

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

THings Liberals Believe in.

====================

1. People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding

Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and the entire Bush family are liberals?

Obama the addict is.

What about these addicts: Rush himself, Jeb Bush's daughter, W, Cindy McCain. Were they - to use Rush's words - sent up the river?

They're not running for president.

This thread is not about who is running for president but about what liberals supposedly believe in. I thought you're all about staying on topic. Hypocrite.

No, I'm not, idiot.

Running out of ideas? Unable to defend your useless drivel? Here, I've got one for you:

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Cindy McCain has made no secret of her drug use, but she's not running for president. The man you think is so good for the country was also once a drug freak.

Junkie. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism.

- Dreams from My Father

You goodless hypocrites and the rest of his sycophants seems to be able to forget that, even as you complain about the foibles of others.

She stole, that alone should have landed her some time in the big house.

How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction

When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate's wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By Amy Silverma

Oct. 18, 1999 | PHOENIX -- GOP presidential candidate John McCain's wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on "Dateline") and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization.

It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do.

It was also vintage McCain media manipulation.

Also Today

No place like home?

While his campaign is gaining some momentum in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina, Arizona Sen. John McCain is locked in a tough primary fight in his own backyard.

By Mike Murphy

I had d�j� vu watching Cindy McCain on television, perky in a purple suit with tinted pearls to match. It was so reminiscent of the summer day in 1994 when suddenly, years after she'd claimed to have kicked her habit, McCain decided to come clean to the world about her addiction to prescription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. She granted semi-exclusive interviews to one TV station and three daily newspaper reporters in Arizona, tearfully recalling her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had stolen the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The local press cooed over her hard-luck story. One of the four journalists spoon-fed the story -- Doug McEachern, then a reporter for Tribune Newspapers, now a columnist with the Arizona Republic (and, it must be added, normally much more acerbic) -- wrote this rather typical lead:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain's unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy's secret would have stayed secret if John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.'s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn't heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.

Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski -- Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower -- Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

It's a story of unintended consequences. It's also a story of power politics and media manipulation that's very un-McCain-like -- if you believe his national media hagiography.

But both of Cindy McCain's staged, teary drug-addiction confessions have been vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want.

McCain did it with the Keating Five, and with the story of the failure of his first marriage (Cindy is his second wife). So what you recall after the humble, honest interview, is not that McCain did favors for savings and loan failure Charlie Keating, or that he cheated on his wife, but instead what an upfront, righteous guy he is.

Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished. John McCain shoots from the hip -- but only after carefully rehearsing the battle plan, to be sure he won't get shot himself.

This is the story of a time that strategy backfired, and yet the McCain machine still managed to contain the damage.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

THings Liberals Believe in.

====================

1. People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding

Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and the entire Bush family are liberals?

Obama the addict is.

What about these addicts: Rush himself, Jeb Bush's daughter, W, Cindy McCain. Were they - to use Rush's words - sent up the river?

They're not running for president.

This thread is not about who is running for president but about what liberals supposedly believe in. I thought you're all about staying on topic. Hypocrite.

No, I'm not, idiot.

Running out of ideas? Unable to defend your useless drivel? Here, I've got one for you:

You've got nothing for me. All you do all day here is b!tch, moan, curse and insult. You're pretty damn useless and clueless otherwise.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

THings Liberals Believe in.

====================

1. People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding

Rush Limbaugh, John McCain and the entire Bush family are liberals?

Obama the addict is.

What about these addicts: Rush himself, Jeb Bush's daughter, W, Cindy McCain. Were they - to use Rush's words - sent up the river?

They're not running for president.

This thread is not about who is running for president but about what liberals supposedly believe in. I thought you're all about staying on topic. Hypocrite.

No, I'm not, idiot.

Running out of ideas? Unable to defend your useless drivel? Here, I've got one for you:

You've got nothing for me. All you do all day here is b!tch, moan, curse and insult. You're pretty damn useless and clueless otherwise.

He has a point - the fact that none of those people are running for President has abolutely nothing to do with this topic.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Cindy McCain has made no secret of her drug use, but she's not running for president. The man you think is so good for the country was also once a drug freak.

Junkie. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism.

- Dreams from My Father

You goodless hypocrites and the rest of his sycophants seems to be able to forget that, even as you complain about the foibles of others.

There's no hypocrisy here. I am not the one calling for the punishment of drug addicts. Rush Limbaugh was. And Jeb Bush, and John McCain. And yet, when it was them or their family, then the tune changed for the treatment their own. That's what hypocrisy is.

Me? I think drugs should be legalized. The war on drugs is as much - if not more - of a farce as the war on terrorism.

Edited October 21, 2008 by Mr. Big Dog

[NickD 203]

On the other hand, conservatives or whatever they call themselves aren't exactly sure who they are or what they stand for.

"Conservatism a term used to describe political philosophies that favour tradition, where tradition refers to various religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs. It is difficult to define the term precisely because different cultures have different established values and, in consequence, conservatives in different cultures have differing goals. (Some conservatives seek to preserve the status quo or to reform society slowly, while others seek to return to the values of an earlier time, the status quo ante).

Even within one culture, different definitions of what it is that constitutes a 'conservative' may be found: Martin Blinkhorn, for example, asks the question, "Who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of modern conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher?"[1]

Samuel Francis defined authentic conservatism as “the survival and enhancement of a particular people and its institutionalized cultural expressions”[2]; Roger Scruton defines conservatism as the “maintenance of the social ecology” and “the politics of delay, the purpose of which is to maintain in being, for as long as possible, the life and health of a social organism”[3]; and Russell Kirk considered conservatism "the negation of ideology".[4]

Conservative political parties have diverse views. For instance, Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, Liberal Party of Australia, and Conservative Party in the UK are all major conservative parties with varying positions."

If conservatism means conserving money and spending it wisely, we sure in the hell didn't have the last eight years of that.

If conservatives relates to traditional values, can only say George W. thinks he is King George, but I thought we rebelled against that, ain't doing nothing now.

In either case trying to used the terms conservatism or liberalism to the two most popular political parties is fruitless, as both have crooks and donkey pits.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I doubt that the sort of broadbrush stereotypes listed in the OP are particularly useful except as a crude means of fostering division.

Fanaticism appeals only to fanatics.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Cindy McCain has made no secret of her drug use, but she's not running for president. The man you think is so good for the country was also once a drug freak.

Junkie. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism.

- Dreams from My Father

You goodless hypocrites and the rest of his sycophants seems to be able to forget that, even as you complain about the foibles of others.

There's no hypocrisy here. I am not the one calling for the punishment of drug addicts. Rush Limbaugh was. And Jeb Bush, and John McCain. And yet, when it was them or their family, then the tune changed for the treatment their own. That's what hypocrisy is.

Me? I think drugs should be legalized. The war on drugs is as much - if not more - of a farce as the war on terrorism.

Obama is a drug addict. It's clear that you'd rather create diversions rather than deal with that fact.

[rocks 494]

Obama is a drug addict. It's clear that you'd rather create diversions rather than deal with that fact.

then dubyah is too?