Leaving the Left, An editiorial

[Redleg]

Ah having taking a second job as working the graveyard shift, I have been listening to a lot of older talk radio programs in a bid to stay awake. THis article is old, but I thought it was rather an interesting read.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...NGUNCQHKJ1.DTL

[Adrian II]

I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.

Good for him, I would run from that, too.

But it looks to me he is merely leaving some of his old dinner companions. Heaven knows why, the article is just more of teh old left-right acrimony.

I believe we should always measure ourselves against the best our opponents have to offer, not the worst, certainly not cast in anecdotal form.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

What the Christ? Who does he eat with that they smile about child molestation?


I think he should take a closer look at the extremists on the right before running away from the extremists on the left.

[sharrukin]

What the Christ? Who does he eat with that they smile about child molestation?


I think he should take a closer look at the extremists on the right before running away from the extremists on the left.

"That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror."

[Sasaki Kojiro]

"That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror."

Why did you quote me and then a random passage from the article?

[Lemur]

Maybe it all boils down to which side's outrageous extremists you find more distasteful.

The author is correct -- there are stupid, intolerant dopes on the left. There are also close-minded ideologues on the right. Shall we score points by comparing idiots?

[Del Arroyo]

I wish I knew more about this writer's background, the article smells a bit of charlatanism, but I could be wrong.

[Lemur]

As long as we're fixating on political idiots, left and right, here's a doozy from Bill O'Reilly today: iPods are endangering America.

I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod… If this is your primary focus in life - the machines… it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America… did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? …I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.

There you have it, kids. America will crumble and fall because of video games and iPods. Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!

[Ice]

As long as we're fixating on political idiots, left and right, here's a doozy from Bill O'Reilly today: iPods are endangering America.

I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod… If this is your primary focus in life - the machines… it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America… did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? …I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.

There you have it, kids. America will crumble and fall because of video games and iPods. Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!

It's amusing how he can tie jihadists and ipods into the same topic.

[Adrian II]

I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod…

But someone else does. Here's iPod 1...

[Aurelian]

About the O'Reilly article:

"Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don’t deal with reality - ever. So they don’t know what day it is; they don’t know temperature it is; they don’t know what their neighbor looks like. They don’t know anything… because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they’ve created their own reality…"

What I want to know is how all of these people who are so detached from reality can afford to buy the latest electronic gadgets and games? That usually involves getting a job and figuring out what day of the week it is.

Besides, this trend of diversion by machine didn't start with iPods and computers. It started with radio and television. O'Reilly himself is diverting a lot of people's time with his crappy tv and radio shows. I think he should be morally consistent and quit his job.

"I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there."

Ummmm... O'Reilly needs to talk to the US Army, because the Army seems to think that video games are a great way to get American kids interested in killing jihadists. Hence the "America's Army" videogame.

Actually, maybe what we need to do is give the jihadists lots of video games so that they have another outlet for their violent tendencies.

[Redleg]

I wish I knew more about this writer's background, the article smells a bit of charlatanism, but I could be wrong.

He is a editorial author at a San Francisco Paper I believe. I also think its a bit of charlatanism in the scope of he focused on the vocal minority in the democratic party and stated he was leaving the left. Kind of misleading, but in an editiorial opinion piece its a technique used by all sprectrums of political thought.

[BDC]

Actually, maybe what we need to do is give the jihadists lots of video games so that they have another outlet for their violent tendencies.

That's why there are so few PS3s. The US Army bought them all up and they're being air-dropped on Taleban positions...

[Adrian II]

That's why there are so few PS3s. The US Army bought them all up and they're being air-dropped on Taleban positions...

Why do you think the Wii-launch took so long?

[Xiahou]

As long as we're fixating on political idiots, left and right, here's a doozy from Bill O'Reilly today: iPods are endangering America.

I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod… If this is your primary focus in life - the machines… it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America… did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? …I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.

There you have it, kids. America will crumble and fall because of video games and iPods. Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!

Ya know, I was actually in my car with the radio on when he spoke this wisdom.... It's truly amazing how his mind works.

[sharrukin]

I think he should take a closer look at the extremists on the right before running away from the extremists on the left.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sharrukin
"That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror."

Why did you quote me and then a random passage from the article?

Because it wasn't random!

[Aenlic]

One should be very wary of self-proclaimed ex-leftists. Some of them became what we now call neo-cons, and are responsible for the almost total elimination of true conservative values in the current administration.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Quote:
Originally Posted by sharrukin
"That could only give aid and comfort to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and all the other Usual Suspects the left so regularly employs to keep from seeing its own reflection in the mirror."



Because it wasn't random!

But that passage doesn't imply he has taken a close look at the extremists on the right at all

All he says there is that the left spends more time saying "We're not them" (in reference to coulter et al) and not enough time on introspection, and then goes on to say he's leaving the left because he can't stand the extreme left. How hypocritical.

[Csargo]

I think I'll stay cozy in the center. :P

[Lemur]

A similar essay -- less anecdotal, and a bit more elegant in its rhetoric, about "leaving" the right:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Like Crossing the Street in London

There are people who call themselves conservatives who are mainly preoccupied with promoting a social agenda -- school prayer, anti-gay, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, etc.

But then there are other conservatives, true conservatives, who are concerned with preserving the Constitution, who are in favor of fiscal responsibility, who value freedom above everything, who don't want the government in their pocketbook or in their bedroom, and who have a reasonable -- even Madisonian -- fear of how human nature manifests itself on the world stage. These are people ever on the lookout for totalitarianism. And they recoil at the first hint of political correctness, because it reminds them of the Stalinist and Maoist blather that brought death and misery to millions.

I respect that kind of conservative. At one time or another, I have been one of them myself. Most are individuals who have developed a lifelong habit of quickly turning left when they sense they're being threatened.

Yet if wooed properly and honestly, I believe these very same conservatives represent a possible mother lode of votes for the Democrats in future elections.

These conservatives just need to be told and then convinced of one thing: America's current political situation is like crossing the street in London. In fact, it's exactly like it.

I was in London in September, and within thirty seconds of leaving Liverpool station a bus almost hit me. They drive on the other side of the road there, and it's very confusing for Americans (and for other Europeans as well). You've been doing this all your life: You're about to cross the street. What do you do? Don't you look left and, if you don't see traffic, you step off the curb? Well, if you do that in London, you get hit by bus.

In fact, because those red double decker buses hug the curb, you are almost guaranteed to get hit by a bus, and flattened. It doesn't help if, like the lifelong conservative, you have developed the reflex of looking left for trouble. The mortal threat -- the precise thing you've been trying to protect yourself from all these years -- is coming from the right.

Tyranny is frighteningly adaptable and the human impulse for power can be a grievous thing, whatever the ideology. If you grew up in the Cold War fearing communism, you weren't crazy. But did we really win the Cold War so that our own government could wire-tap citizens without a court order? Did we win the Cold War so as to dismantle and cripple habeas corpus? Did we win it so we could torture prisoners and flout the Geneva Conventions? Did we win it so that a president could ignore or nullify laws by issuing signing statements? And what is conservative about racking up the biggest deficits in history? Or poisoning the environment?

If you are a conservative, you probably have a very good imagination for disaster. You are not a sentimentalist. You're probably a pragmatist. So look at these elements -- the curtailing of civil safeguards and the rise of the executive branch -- and imagine a few steps down the line. Are we moving closer to Ronald Reagan's city on a hill? Or are we taking the first steps toward becoming ourselves the Evil Empire that Reagan described? Certainly, this is not what you want. I know this is not what you dreamed about the night the night the Berlin Wall came down.

So stop looking left. There's danger still out there, but these days it's coming from the right.