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Why I Hold Certain Conservative In Distain.

I was going to title this post “Why Do I Seem To Pick On Conservatives More Than Liberals????”, but that didn’t seem quite right. Yes, it’s a rant on the “True Conservative”, something that I note I’ve done a lot more of lately than I have to Liberals. This is not a rant against the average Conservative. Many dear friends of mine fit in this category.  I love them dearly and have respect for them even on the occasions when our political views differ.

Oh crap…. I was going to type “To Be Perfectly Clear…” before the next sentence, but it’s come to my attention that President Obama uses that phrase a lot and the next thing he says that follows that is often murky at best….

But…

Never-the-less…

Let me be perfectly clear! 🙂

I hold the rabid members of both groups in great disdain, and won’t hesitate to prick the bubble of a Liberal who I see as behaving badly. I don’t mind having strong disagreements with those either side, and have indeed had plenty from both.  At the end of the day, most of my debating foes are still friends who just disagree.

But there is a line drawn when someone uses ad-homs, lies about me, completely distorts my positions, and uses the tactics that are often found on talk radio. When I say talk radio, I’m not just talking about the obvious kings of the airwaves. In the brief period of time that  Air America existed, most of the content fell into the same patterns and strategies as those used by the more successful right wing demagogs.

Blogs, especially the commenters, too often fall into the same pattern. I don’t go to Althouse much any more because of it.  One blog that is especially bad is Gay Patriot. I used to like going there, and since they started blogging at about the same time I did, I have always felt a bit of kinship, even though we’ve disagreed on matters. Proprietor Dan Blatt, someone I consider a friend,  has posted a number of my blog posts on GP in years past.  But I bowed out last summer because I got sick of the constant derogatory, fallacious, and flat out vile tone of a number of the commenters.

I do go there from time to time just to see what they are talking about. As the PRISM story has been making the rounds, I found that some of the commenters and I do for a change agree on the wrongness of this spying in principle. It was nice to have some agreement with some who don’t normally see eye to eye.  Here is what I wrote, preceded by a comment that I agree with:

• Try to imagine the Framers saying, “Of course the Post Office should keep a ledger for the government to study, of every person you mail a letter to, plus the weight and thickness of the letter. The Fourth Amendment only protects the content of letters and not information on the date, sender, addressee, weight or thickness, etc. And it’s perfectly normal that the government would want to know about every letter mailed by every citizen and would track them. What, have you got something to hide?”

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — June 7, 2013 @ 10:29 am – June 7, 2013

That.

And the Verizon (and AT&T and T-Mobile and Sprint no doubt) thing is not the worst…

Dan… Strange that you don’t seen to be aware of the much bigger story. Google PRISM, which is the far more damning story that broke yesterday.

Of course, when you do that, the NSA will have not only have the record of you doing that, but also the search parameters, because they are tapped into Google servers, along with Microsoft, YaHoo, Facebook, Apple, Skype, HotMail, etc., and are not just reading “metadata”, but the data itself.

But, I suppose that is also making a mountain out of a molehill, and Hey! We’re all safe now!

As I wrote yesterday on my blog, how difficult is it for the Government to connect the Verizon (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint) phone number of customer X to all of that persons ENTIRE internet activities?

Not very.

And this can all be done in secret because idiot politician like Chambliss and Feinstein supported, and continue to support, the Patriot Act, which as we all now see, gave the US Government open and complete access to virtually ALL our online activities! And remember, the agencies are now encouraged to share intel with each other.

How did we go from “They might spy on your library records” to this in just one decade?

The former USSR and Stalin would be proud!

PS. Oh… And just think of what they’ll do next now that their precious PRISM program failed to pick up the Boston Marathon plot!

And it can and will be done in secret, because the Patriot Act gives them the cover to do so!

PPS. Good link Live…. Gonna use that to update my blogpost from yesterday…

Comment by Sonicfrog — June 7, 2013 @ 12:48 pm – June 7, 2013

So, all is well….  Until:

• PS. Oh… And just think of what they’ll do next now that their precious PRISM program failed to pick up the Boston Marathon plot!

  Comment by Sonicfrog — June 7, 2013 @ 12:48 pm – June 7, 2013

  Actually, given the descriptions so far, I find it highly improbable that PRISM failed to pick up the Boston Marathon plot, given that the Tsarnevs were known to multiple government agencies as potential terrorists, with that information having been shared directly to the State Department by the Russians.

  I think it far more probable that the information was deliberately ignored.

  The nicer reason would be that the Tsarnevs, being immigrants, on welfare, located in a blue city, and attending a liberal college, were extended protections from scrutiny or action that would not be similarly applied to US citizens with jobs in a red state.

  The more sinister reason is that Obama wants a Reichstag fire. Given how quickly the Obama Party, the Obama media, and Obama-controlled liberal groups started blaming the Tea Party and conservatives following the bombing, I believe the latter.

  One must remember that Barack Obama, at every level in his political career, has demonstrated that he can and will use private and confidential government information to smear and destroy his opponents. It is the one consistency throughout his political career.

  With that in mind, I would say PRISM is less about keeping us safe than it is about ensuring a permanent Obama Party majority and governmental control. The Obama Party and Barack Obama machine are using this information and this access, with the collusion of the large technology companies, to destroy all opposition to their rule.

  One more point: This was more than obvious to all of us in 2008.

  So at this point, I have ZERO mercy for any supporters of Barack Obama. You can either admit that you are ignorant, greedy racists who voted for Obama based on black skin and the promise of free slop at other peoples’ expense, or you can acknowledge that you are malicious, hypocritical liars who deliberately and knowingly set out to destroy George W. Bush and the Republican Party based on standards that you yourself had no intention of keeping.

  Comment by North Dallas Thirty — June 7, 2013 @ 1:49 pm – June 7, 2013

“standards that you yourself had no intention of keeping.”…. WTF????

I don’t even know what he’s talking about here. But that’s not unusual.

I did not vote for Barrack Obama in either 2008 or 2012, and do not support much of his agenda. I have gone after the current President on many occations. I  have also defended the former President  here on Sonicfrog and elsewhere when I feel that is warranted. I am a registered libertarian, but I’m not sure if that is the right place for me. I am neither Conservative OR Liberal.. I am something… Different!  I have made these facts very clear to all on the GP site, especially to NDT because he always says these weird, nonsensical, and false things about me. But it doesn’t matter. He for years has now has grouped me into this category he calls “an Obama voter”, as if that is some horrible slur.

The above nasty and unprovoked reply / attack / weirdness, what ever you want to call it, is quite tame compared to other stuff he’s regurgitated over and over toward me and other who do not tow the party line….

Hell… We’re actually somewhat in agreement, and he STILL goes all Looney Tunes on me!!!!

Thing is, when I’ve gone to liberal sites, or had conversations with very VERY left wing individuals on Facebook for instance… Sometimes things do get bad, but often it gets worked out, or we agree to disagree.

There has been far far less willingness to step back and just have a normal conversation for many on the Conservative side. But I recognize that the modern Conservative has learned the art of argument from the radio Gods of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Levin, where the ad-hom and insult equals winning an argument.

Yes, it does happen with some left wingers too, but not nearly as prevalent as it does on the right side of things.

The radio icons have taught a generation of Conservatives some very bad manners and mannerisms.

But I’m OK with it. The wholesale adoption of these tactics will sooner or later completely backfire at the pols. And then maybe some form of sanity will return to the GOP.

For now though, I won’t hold my breath.