Bloggers for Civil Discourse

Saturday, March 1, 2008

A new contributor?

The entire point of this blog was to start discussion of various topics from both sides of the political aisle. Hopefully soon we'll have a new contributor.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

It seems that more and more we're seeing states work hard to give up their rights, and the rights of their citizens to mob rule. Not content with having the federal government be a binding and cohesive force to hold the states together and having the states govern the people within their borders, the Democratic party marches on down the path toward direct democracy and the inevitable socialism that it brings. Here's the latest from KOMO TV and the Washington State Senate.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - State senators have approved a bill that would deliver the state's electoral votes to the U.S. presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote.

The bill, which passed 30-18 Monday, now heads to the House.

The bill would change Washington's current system of typically giving all of the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the statewide election to awarding all of the state's delegates to the national popular vote winner.

So, the State of Washington, with eleven electoral votes will throw away the influence of it's population. Imagine the scenario where a Republican candidate wins the popular vote, but the election results in Washington would normally throw the state's electoral votes to a Democratic candidate. Washington's electoral votes would then go to the Republican candidate.

This isn't really that far-fetched a scenario. In 2004, the Republican candidate won the majority of the popular vote (the first time any presidential candidate had done so in a long time), while in Washington State, the Democratic candidate won the majority of the statewide vote. Under the scheme proposed by the state senate, if it had been in place in 2004, the 11 electoral votes that the State's electors cast for John Kerry would have gone to George W. Bush. That can't really be what the Democratic members of Washington State's Senate want can it?

The proposal is aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2000 election, when Al Gore got the most votes nationwide but George W. Bush put together enough victories in key states to win a majority in the Electoral College and capture the White House.

The Washington state bill was sponsored by Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland.

The sheer brilliance of Washington's Democratic party eludes me. This wonderful proposal is aimed at preventing just exactly what happened in 2000? If I remember correctly, in 2000, Al Gore did indeed win a plurality of the nationwide popular vote. It seems to me that he also won Washington State's electoral votes. So if this proposal had been in effect in 2000, nothing would have been different with regard to Washington State's electoral votes.

When you consider how blue Washington is, this proposal can only hurt the Democratic party… Not that that's a bad thing in my mind. Maybe that's why it's designed to not go into effect unless a majority of electoral votes go that way too.

This is nothing less than an attempt to do an end-run around the Constitutionally prescribed method of selecting the President though. Electoral votes were apportioned to states the way they were for a reason. Changing that ought to require a Constitutional Amendment.

The U.S. Constitution does allow state legislators to choose the manner in which the state's electors are selected. While this is a perfectly Constitutional way to move toward a direct democracy, it seems to me that the Democratic party can't have really thought it through.

Originally published at Perri Nelson's Website. Cross posted at NW Bloggers.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

An agent of change

Apparently one of the attractions of Barak Obama for some Democratic voters is that he's seen as an agent of change. There's some question about his experience and his accomplishments. There's also some question about what he will actually do if he's elected to the Presidency, but he is seen as "the candidate for change."

Meanwhile, quite a few conservatives (including myself) have waxed despondent over the presumptive nomination of John McCain to the Republican candidacy for President. He is, after all, no conservative. Sure, he's a Republican, but he's one of the most liberal of Republicans. He has more in common with Edward M. Kennedy than with Ronald Reagan. He is also, sadly, typical of the sort of politician that seems to represent the Republican party over the last several years.

About eight years ago, Republicans nearly nominated John McCain instead of George W. Bush. When his bid for the Presidency failed that time, Mr. McCain didn't fade into obscurity. Instead he went back to his Senate career and earned media praise as a "maverick" Republican willing to stand up against his party and to work together with the Democratic party.

Some four years ago, there was talk about a John Kerry – John McCain Presidential ticket. Imagine that, a Democratic candidate with a Republican running mate. I don't think that anyone ever really took that idea seriously. Certainly John McCain seemed to quash the idea when it was brought up. Even so, the media played it for what it was worth. John McCain is, after all, a media darling among the Republicans. Now he's received the endorsement of Republican party leadership.

Two years ago, it was obvious that many voters were dissatisfied with the direction the Republican party had taken. There was talk about teaching Republican leaders a lesson. Republicans lost in that election in a big way. Conservatives really lost.

Now I find myself in the uncomfortable position of actually considering voting for a Democratic candidate. It's not that I find either Hillary Clinton or, more likely, Barak Obama to be preferable to a Republican, because I don't. It's not that I couldn't bring myself to vote for John McCain under any circumstances, because I could. He is, after all, much more conservative than either of the Democratic choices.

No. The reason I would consider voting for Barak Obama, or even Hillary Clinton, is because if they became President Republicans in congress would find it much easier to oppose their initiatives than they would the same initiatives if proposed by a Republican President. Unfortunately, I don't trust the current crop of Republicans in Congress.

I don't particularly like that position. In the battleground of ideas, conservatism is looking pretty weak. It isn't weak, but unfortunately conservative candidates have been. After the 2006 elections, conservatives have appeared more and more in the media to be obstructionists, preventing Congress from "getting things done." It hasn't helped that only in the last year or so has President Bush managed to find his veto pen and used it to "block passage" of "important Congressional initiatives."

Liberal candidates haven't exactly been pinnacles of strength either, but they have the media on their side. They have captured the terms of the debate and turned them to their own advantage. While conservatives laughed about BDS, and prattled on about how the left seems to be motivated only by hatred, liberals have come to be perceived as agents of change.

This isn't really anything new. All one has to do is look at the labels to see that the perceptions will follow. Conservatives are obviously about conserving the status quo. Liberals, who often prefer not to be called liberals, but rather "progressives" are obviously about "progress" and "change".

Look at how we express ourselves too. Oftentimes conservatives will talk or write about the moral or cultural decay they see in our modern world. Liberals will talk or write about liberties and freedoms that they are seeking to secure. Conservatives talk about the past and liberals talk about the future. Conservatives talk about responsibility while liberals talk about ending "oppression".

Is that really the way things are though? Are liberals really agents of change? Are conservatives really agents of stagnation?

Perhaps it's time for a conservative revolution again. Maybe it's time to stop talking about all of the things we're "against", and start talking about what we stand "for". Maybe it's time to take back the language. I think that a true conservative is really an agent of change, and that it's time we express it that way.

Conservatives distrust "big government". So do liberals, or at least you'd think that they do to watch Hollywood's movies. Oftentimes the heroes are the ones who are fighting the leaden and heavy hand of government intrusion. Remember "Enemy of the State"? That movie was about a man who became the target of rogue NSA agents after he accidentally received evidence of a political assassination.

Of course the villains in that movie were "right wing" types and "conservatives". Will Smith's character was a liberal Lawyer, and his wife Carla was as liberal as they come. The key question though was "Well, who's gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors?".

It's plain that there's a distrust of government on both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives have owned that distrust for a long time, but liberals have co-opted it and twisted it into a fear of the parts of government that are necessary.

Our founders believed that the necessary function of government was to protect men from harming one another, and to ensure that men have the opportunity to live free and productive lives. Oftentimes it seems that liberals believe that the necessary function of government is to provide for us. Conservatives spend more time railing about the "nanny state", while liberals worry about whether their government is looking into their bedrooms.

We should be able to change this. Conservatives should work to change it.

Liberals seek change. Barak Obama's rise in popularity is evidence of this, despite his lack of a substantial record and the fact that ideologically there's practically no difference between him and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton's waning popularity is also evidence of this, in particular because she's seen as leading the charge back to the days of her husband's days in power.

Conservatives seek change too. The elections of 2006 are evidence of this. Conservatives were obviously fed up with the Republican party morphing into the party of big government and entitlement. This is also why in some way's John McCain's rise to power mystifies me.

I don't really believe that the Democratic party really believes in entitlements. I know that most of the Republican party doesn't. In my opinion, Democratic party leaders believe in power and so do Republican party leaders. This is one of the reason's why John McCain's rise to power doesn't really surprise me.

The problem is politicians and their lust for power. Conservatives distrust this lust for power, and so they distrust big government and career politicians. Conservatives aren't interested in power, they're interested in liberty. To a certain degree, so are liberals, although conservatives would say that they're more interested in license.

Like I said, politicians believe in power. One certain way to power is to appeal to the electorate's baser instincts. The Democratic party's leadership is full of past masters at this. They've fostered the American entitlement mentality. They exploit the moral weaknesses of their base, transforming license into liberty. They foster the idea that we're victims of oppression, encouraging the entitlement mentality.

They do this because entitled victims are dependent upon government to provide for them. A people dependent upon government is a people that empowers the politicians that promise to fulfill their needs. Entitlements are expensive though, and with that expense comes the need for the hand of government to regulate just how you must live to obtain your benefits, to cut costs. With that regulation, we become less free.

George Washington was a true leader. He also distrusted power, and set us a wonderful example. When he refused to run for re-election to a third term of office it set a precedent that eventually (but only after seeing that precedent overturned) resulted in a Constitutional Amendment. Now all Presidents are effectively term limited, even William Jefferson Clinton (although he may be trying to find a way around it).

One change that would benefit us all would be to establish term limits for Congressmen and Senators. Without the possibility of a career in the House or the Senate, the attractions of power might wane a bit. A true agent of change would advocate for this.

This sort of change faces an uphill battle though. Our Representatives and Senators are too well entrenched to find term limits attractive. They'll argue that what we need is experience in our legislators. Well let me tell you, the sort of experience they're talking about doesn't promote change.

Term limiting federal legislators would require a Constitutional amendment. That's an uphill battle in itself, and rightly so. Over the centuries since our nation was founded there have been quite a few changes to our Constitution. Not all of them have been to the benefit of the country. I'm fairly certain that you can think of one or two that might be less than popular, including one that had to be repealed, and another that helped to establish a government agency that we all distrust.

Term limiting our federal legislators might run into opposition from a large part of the electorate as well. Not for nothing have those entitlement programs been created after all.

Worse yet, term limiting our legislators doesn't really go far enough. Career politicians are indeed a problem because of their lust for power, but even worse are career bureaucrats and "staffers". Still, term limiting legislators would be an effective beginning. Making their replacements reset the Congressional staff would be a good idea too.

One of the biggest erosions of our freedoms doesn't come from politicians at all. Instead it comes from the federal bureaucracy. When a federal agency is established by Congress, it just about never dies, and our freedoms are whittled away.

We're all familiar to on degree or another with the process by which our nation's laws are established. Depending upon whether or not the law involves the raising of revenue or not, it's either proposed in the House of Representatives, or in the Senate. Then that body votes upon it and the bill passes to the other body. Then, the differences are worked out between the House and the Senate. Finally the approved bill is sent to the President, who either signs it into law or vetoes it and sends it back to Congress. Congress can then either drop it, in which case it doesn't become a law, or override the President's veto in which case it does.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. A lot of the laws that we have to obey don't ever go through that process. For example, the Food and Drug Administration can make it illegal to possess a particular drug without Congress ever getting involved, and without ever requiring a Presidential signature. What once took a Constitutional amendment (the 18th amendment) is now handled as a matter of course by a federal agency. THAT needs to be changed.

The FDA can make a drug illegal to possess, despite state laws to the contrary. Think about that the next time you hear about "medical marijuana" on the west coast. Federal agents can still arrest a person using "medical marijuana" on federal drug charges, even though the state they live in says they have a legal right to use it. Can you remember when the last time you elected someone to the Food and Drug Administration?

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not in favor of the use of illegal drugs, nor am I really in favor of legalizing them. The point is that unelected bureaucrats can establish regulations that have the force of law, and those regulations can trump state laws, and there's not a thing that the electorate can do about it! THAT needs to be changed.

Perhaps one way to fix this type of problem can be found in our Constitution. Some of my liberal friends are fond of telling me that we shouldn't have a standing army, because of this line from Article I section 8 (where the limited powers of Congress are enumerated):

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

Wouldn't it be great if there were a constitutional amendment that said something like that regarding federal bureaucracies and their regulatory power? Perhaps something like this…

No Appropriation of Money to support any Federal Agency shall be for a longer Term than two Years; Nor shall any regulation established by any Federal Agency have effect for longer than two Years except by an explicit re-authorization by Congress Every two Years;

Now that's a change I'd like to see. I'd be willing to negotiate on the term.

Of course, proposing Constitutional amendments isn't likely to gain much traction, especially when they're proposed on a blog. Still, I'd much rather propose a positive change that moves us toward a more limited government and away from socialism than sit here complaining about the sort of change we're likely to see from Barak Obama or John McCain.

I think it's time that conservatives took the offensive. I think it's time that we were seen as the agents of change. I think it's time that we changed the rules of the game and shook up the status-quo. I think it's past time for a change in Washington. I think that the changes that conservatives will propose will move us forward.

Conservatives can be true agents of change.

Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

To all American veterans: Thank You

Thank you for doing what I did not. Thank you for serving your country, defending her honor, and ensuring her liberty. Without your sacrifice, I might not have the freedom to even write these words.

Thank you for taking the liberty which I love and sharing it with others throughout the world. Thank you for representing my country overseas. Thank you for feeding the hungry, for rebuilding infrastructure and nations, even though they have fought against us. Thank you for ensuring peace through your strength.

Thank you for ending tyranny and oppression in so many places, and for standing up for what is right even when it puts you at risk of life and limb.

But mostly, thank you for demonstrating that there is good in the world. Thank you for protecting this great nation of ours, even when it forgets to honor you. Words cannot express the debt of gratitude we owe you.

May you be given the chance to finish the job that you have started and to return home with honor, and to honor.

You guys are the best.

Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website. Cross posted at NW Bloggers. Cross posted at Reject the U.N.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Disasters, natural and otherwise

"It's Bush's fault." That's what we were hearing this week about the California wildfires. They were exacerbated due to global warming, which wouldn't be happening if President Bush made us implement the Kyoto Protocol we were told. The disaster response wasn't fast enough. California's national guard troops were all over in Iraq. California's national guard equipment was over in Iraq.

We now know that global warming had little or nothing to do with the wildfires that seem to happen every year in southern California. We now know that the Santa Ana winds that helped to spread the wildfires happen every year, and that there's nothing unusual about how dry those winds were.

Federal relief efforts began within a day of the disaster. California has 20,000 active national guard troops and only 2,000 of them are overseas. The other 18,000 are still in California. Not only that but California actually has more equipment than they can use, both their own, and that supplied by the federal government and from other states.

It also turns out that the wildfires were set. That's right, it was arson. Several arson suspects are in custody, but the last I heard none of them had been linked to the wildfires yet.

About the only thing I've heard about poor response had to do with state regulations regarding the helicopters used to scoop up water from rivers and dump it on fires. Apparently they had to have spotter planes as escorts and that caused delays. State officials though have said that bureaucracy did not get in the way of the response, it was just high winds that made it dangerous to fly.

As I was driving home from work last night, I was listening to re-runs of some of the day's talk radio shows. I had the opportunity to listen to an exchange between Gov. Schwarzenegger and a reporter. She kept pushing him to find something wrong with the federal response, but he was having none of it.

The latest news I've heard on this is that six people are dead, millions have been evacuated and thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed by the fires. That's a horror and a tragedy of huge proportions.

I've been very fortunate in my life not to have suffered anything like the loss the people in southern California are facing. I've never lost a home to fire, flood, earthquake or any other natural disaster. In fact I've never lost a home.

I can only imagine how devastating it would be though. Even with insurance, replacing or rebuilding the home could be an incredible setback. While rebuilding is going on living in a hotel, a stadium, or shelter would be horrifying. The irreplaceable memories held within small possessions such as photo albums, nick-knacks and the like would be gone forever.

Every time I hear about a tragedy such as the wildfires in California, or hurricanes devastating entire communities (remember Andrew?) it hurts a bit inside to think of what the people are going through.

Starting over would be tough. This is why we have insurance programs. This is why we have disaster relief programs. This is one reason why we have zoning regulations and building codes.

Natural disasters happen. We can do a lot of things to mitigate the dangers, but we can't eliminate them.

People that live on mountainsides are always at risk of landslides taking their house downhill. People that live on beaches are always at risk of having storm surge erode the sand under their homes. People that live on islands are at risk of tsunamis washing their homes away. People that live in "basins" like New Orleans are at risk of floods. People that live in dry wooded areas are in danger of wildfire. People that live near volcanoes… well, you get the idea.

Oftentimes in the wake of these tragedies I'll read some rather strange responses. On the left we have Bush Derangement Syndrome trying to blame every natural catastrophe on the President, and eagerly looking to find mistakes in the response. On the right, it's often some callous remark like "who in their right mind builds their house on a flood plain?".

Both responses are wrong-headed.

As you know, I'm all for smaller government. I believe that a lot of the programs that our federal government gets involved in, such as welfare, social security and medicare aren't rightly its business. Disaster preparedness and response are an exception though. While the primary responsibility for these still belongs at the state and local levels, the federal government should be involved in them as well.

The Constitution grants the Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". I believe that the "general Welfare of the United States" most definitely includes disaster preparedness and response.

It makes sense in the wake of a disaster to examine the federal response, because the federal government has a constitutional duty to see to the general welfare of the United States. The comparisons between the federal response to the California wildfires and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina aught to be made. We need to know whether we've learned from previous disasters and whether we're handling them better or worse.

We shouldn't focus all of our attention on the federal response though. As I said earlier, the primary responsibility for preparedness and response still belongs at the state and local level. This is simply common sense.

Think about it. If you're at home, cooking dinner and a grease fire starts and quickly spreads, do you wait for the fire department to arrive before responding? Or do you grab some flour and throw it on the fire to smother it?

If an earthquake topples a building and people are trapped under the rubble, should you wait for the federal government to bring in heavy equipment to move that rubble, or should you use local equipment. If you wait, it's almost certain that more lives will be lost than if you respond quickly.

Politicians, the media, and bloggers love to play the blame game.

In California the blame was quickly thrown upon President Bush, for things that had little or nothing to do with how events unfolded. It turns out though that the local, state, and the federal response was quick. It also turns out that the blame for the horrifying tragedy that has unfolded belongs to a sick, twisted individual that deliberately set the fires.

In Louisiana the blame was quickly thrown upon President Bush. The news media were all over the story, hyping things up and reporting on events that never actually happened. How many of you remember the reports of cannibalism and rape gangs? The federal government response was criticized and called racist. Who remembers the parking lot full of busses sitting in water? Busses that the local government could have used to evacuate?

Why is it that a category 3 hurricane is treated as an example of the effects of global warming? Why is it that nobody compares Katrina to Andrew, the second most destructive hurricane in U.S. History and a category 5 storm? Could it be that it's harder to play the "race card" with Andrew?

Few people have remarked upon or contrasted the effects that Katrina had in Mississippi with the effects on New Orleans. Both were hit by the same storm. There was severe damage in both places. Could it be that the effectiveness of the response and the preparedness of the government in Mississippi weren't newsworthy, and the poor response and lack of preparation in Louisiana made the perfect opportunity to castigate the President?

The big differences in the California wildfire story and the Katrina story were the local response, and the treatment of the federal response by the media.

The blame game needs to be put back in the box and the box needs to be put back on the shelf. Preferably in the back.

Which is more important anyway? The tragedy suffered by the victims of these catastrophes, both natural and unnatural, or the political opportunities they provide for politicians more interested in power than people?

Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website. Cross posted at NW Bloggers.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Double Standards

I know you've noticed it.

Whenever a Republican is caught in a scandal it seems to be a career wrecker. Whenever a Democrat is caught in a similar scandal, even if that Democrat has done something more heinous than the Republican it never seems to affect their career.

The Democrats have fond memories of being swept into power in the last election. They claimed that a universal lack of support for the war on terror was one of the reasons. They also claimed that the voters disgust with the Republican "culture of corruption" was one of the reasons.

Then they proceeded to place corrupt people in positions of power.

They complained about earmarks. It was a legitimate complaint. The Republican controlled congress before them was addicted to them. They wanted more transparency. That is, they did until they took office.

What happened to that legislation?

It's interesting to look at some of this stuff. When President Clinton was impeached Democrats were fond of saying "it's only about sex", and that it was justified to "lie" about "sex". They actually argued that adultery was nobody's business.

When a Republican is involved in a sex scandal he's demonized by both the right and the left. Not so with a Democrat.

I've actually heard liberals argue that the issue isn't immorality it's hypocrisy. An immoral Democrat isn't a hypocrite because he has no moral standards to violate. An immoral Republican is a hypocrite because he does.

Isn't it better to have high standards that you occasionally fail to meet than to have no standards at all? Apparently not when it comes to politics.

A Democrat that exhibits a moral failing is a man (or woman) that made a mistake. He deserves our sympathy. A Republican that exhibits a moral failing is a monster to be destroyed.

A liberal can malign our nation's troops, accusing them of murder, rape, and various other war crimes. John Kerry did it and got a pass. Jack Murtha did it and got a pass. A conservative can't call them out on it though without being accused of "questioning their patriotism" or "swiftboating" them.

Speaking of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, have you noticed that the left loves to claim that they've been discredited, yet not a single charge they made against John Kerry was ever actually refuted? How is it that an attempt to set the record straight is now a derogatory verb?

A liberal is free to make up stories and create a fabricated military record so that he can malign our nation's troops. When this happens, and is proven in court, a conservative had better not bring it up. Look at Rush Limbaugh. He happened to call one of these liberal fabricators "phoney" and the left has turned it around and now accuses Rush of maligning the troops. Never mind that the man was convicted of fraud.

I guess it's possible for a Democrat or a liberal to be a hypocrite after all. Perhaps it's time to attack them on their record of attacking conservatives and Republicans yet never launching similar attacks on those within their own ranks that exhibit the same failings.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

I hate arguing with liberals

I really do.

I don't mind a good debate. I think they help to sharpen the mind and help the open minded to learn and grow. Some liberals are willing to debate that way, and I have learned to respect them.

Most liberals though do not debate that way. One of my fellow bloggers on another site comes to mind. Once he seemed rational and willing to debate, but he already had some definitely annoying quirks.

For one thing he constantly belittles the people whose policies he disagrees with. Can you tell me how it bolsters your argument to call President Bush "the shrub"? Sure, it's a bit of a witticism, but I find it in poor taste. Admittedly, there are quite a few on the right that do the same thing. Just as much as I despise it in liberals, I despise in it conservatives.

Surely you've noticed this about many bloggers, particularly on the left. Why is it that we continue to read comparisons of President Bush to Adolph Hitler? Or to a chimpanzee? Why is it that we continue to hear how dumb and unintelligent President Bush is? Or how inarticulate?

Do these attacks on the person really strengthen the left's arguments? I don't think so. For that matter, are these particular attacks (Let's leave aside some of the other attacks for now, and just address these.) on President Bush accurate?

Adolph Hitler was a racist monster. Whatever else may define him in your eyes, that defines him in mine. Only a racist monster could have conceived of the holocaust, the attempted mass extermination of an entire race.

Whatever else you may think about President Bush, I hardly think you can call him a racist. He has appointed many representatives of various minorities to his cabinet and to offices of power. He judged these people on their merits, and not on their race.

He has done more to openly welcome immigrants from other nations than previous Presidents, especially with regard to our southern border, offering amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom come from Mexico. These are hardly the actions of a racist.

I'm sure that the left would choose other areas to compare President Bush with Adolph Hitler. Civil liberals that want to discuss this are welcome to comment.

As for whether President Bush resembles a chimpanzee in appearance all I can say is what a childish thing to say about anyone. This is as bad as the racist attitude that someone is inferior because of the color of their skin.

How about President Bush's intelligence. Liberals frequently call him a moron, or other derogatory names relating to their perception of his intelligence. Yet the man went to a prestigious ivy league college and graduated. I seriously doubt that such institutions of higher learning are accepting morons as students. For that matter, one of the liberal examples of "intelligence" was Sen. John Kerry, a man who actually received poorer grades in college than President Bush did.

So these particular attacks are hardly accurate. Yet we continue to see them from the left.

As conversations with this blogger continued, I found still more things I didn't like about arguing with him. For one thing, his belittling of people doesn't stop with public figures. He also likes to belittle the people who are having discussions with him. In a recent post, he used obscenities to describe a commenter. That's hardly a way to encourage debate. It's also not exactly a good way to encourage readers to come to your blog. Again, I've seen this on conservative blogs too, and it's not a pretty site.

I recently had a similar experience with another liberal blogger. I recently went to comment at another left wing website in response to an article there. One of the commenters proceeded to call me names, which included several obscenities. He also questioned MY intelligence. I asked him to tone it down so we could have a reasonable discussion and it just got worse. He even LIED about being a "conservative", just not a Bush Kool-aid drinker. I went to his website and saw that it's a prime example of a left wing site, just overflowing with examples of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Post after post on this blogger's site were about a new "emem" he had discovered (he seems to have invented the term too). They were essentially a recitation of Keith Olberman's accusations against President Bush. These accusations had no supporting material to back them up, and in fact could easily be refuted. It seemed as if repeating this "emem", especially in a very large font size with big red text, would make it true, despite the lack of other support.

Which brings me to another problem I have with liberals. They LIE without shame. The "emem" discoverer even goes so far as to proclaim it at the top of his blog, saying that you can't trust anything you read on his site, because he "makes up" his own facts.

The biggest charge about lying though comes from the left. They constantly proclaim that "Bush Lied, People Died". It's a crock of horse manure, and many of them know it. We currently have several Democratic representatives trying to push various impeachment measures through Congress based on charges that President Bush, or Vice President Cheney "manipulated" pre-war intelligence in an effort to bring us into war.

The problem with that is a lot of that intelligence was gathered before President Bush was even on a Presidential ballot, and a lot of the Democrats were pursuing the very same agenda of "Regime Change" in Iraq back in the 1990s. There are multiple online sources with quotes from these Democrats as far back as 1998 (perhaps even further) talking about the danger Saddam Hussein and Iraq posed to world and National security.

Ask me, and I'll provide you with links to the material. Bullwinkle has VIDEO. John W. Lillpop has quotes. I can even provide you with pointers to the text of Federal Laws that called for regime change in Iraq as far back as 1998.

Liberals like to ask the question "where's the WMDs", ignoring the fact that that wasn't the sole reason we went to war. They like to call it a war for oil, even though most of Iraq's oil goes to nations other than the U.S. They like to say "Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11" as if the President or the Vice President said that he did (they never said that, only that Iraq had links to Al Qaeda, which has been proven). They play the "moral equivalence" game, equating the treatment of illegal enemy combatants with criminals whose rights include not being forced to give evidence against themselves.

Ask them about it though, and like the first liberal blogger I mentioned, they'll tell you to go look it up. And that's another thing I hate about arguing with liberals. They'll make wild assertions, claiming there's data to back them up, but they won't provide the data. They want you to do their homework. They want you to go out and research their points, from their point of view, rather than presenting you with the evidence.

Present them with documents. Present them with original source material. It doesn't matter. If it doesn't fit their pre-conceived world view, they'll ignore it or dismiss it. Present them with the findings of the Congress of the United States, and they'll tell you THOSE aren't the reasons such and such was done, no - go look up so and so's writeup on the reasons, without a link, and as if some pundit's analysis or opinion holds more weight than what the people who took the action say is why they took it.

Liberals aren't alone in this, but in just about every political conversation I've had with a liberal, this is the way things have gone. I've been wrong occasionally, but most of the time I'm either lied to, or the conversation devolves into name-calling and ad-hominem attacks. Most of the rest of the time they'll try to hijack the conversation and argue about something else.

Lord help you if that happens, because if you respond to their new line of argument, someone else will join in the fray and accuse you of throwing up a smoke screen to avoid the original issue. And naturally they won't say anything about the person who originally hijacked the conversation.

One thing about conservatives. For the most part, conservatives enjoy free speech, and support your right to free speech. The same cannot be said for liberals. Speak out on something you feel passionately about and if it doesn't fit with the liberal agenda, they'll do what they can to squelch your speech.

It might begin with a simple call to "get off the soapbox", as recently happened to me on another one of my blogs. Or it could be a pie in the face, as has happened to many conservative speakers. Or liberals could simply gang up in the audience and shout a conservative speaker down. I don't think I can recall a single case where a liberal speaker was shouted down by a conservative audience. Can you?

Of course now we're hearing all about the "fairness doctrine". It's supposed to be the answer to right-wing talk radio. It's really just another attempt to silence voices the left doesn't agree with.

Some on the left will be sure to bring up the Dixie Chicks, claiming that when people boycotted their concerts and wouldn't buy their albums that they were being censored. Sorry Charlie, as the tuna commercial used to go, but that argument just doesn't work. There's a difference between censorship and refusing to support speech you disagree with. The Dixie Chicks weren't censored. They were free to spread their message of dissent. It just wasn't a popular message and their popularity suffered for it.

Disagree with a liberal though and you'll be demonized. If you are skeptical about global warming (or is it global cooling, or just simply human induced climate change), then you're the equivalent of a holocaust denier and the left will take your name for when they hold their Nuremberg style trials for climate change deniers. If you want national security as opposed to giving amnesty to millions of law-breakers who don't have our nations' interest in mind, why you're a racist. Speak out against "affirmative action" or say that "the only way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating based on race" and you'll be called a racist, or accused of trying to set back the hand of progress.

In fact, the single thing I dislike most about arguing with liberals is the shadenfreude and hypocrisy exhibited by some of them whenever a conservative gets in trouble. If a conservative is merely accused of talking to a minor about homosexual sex, he's demonized and hounded out of office. If a liberal actually commits a homosexual rape with more than one minor he's lauded as a great officeholder.

We saw this happen just a bit over nine months ago. Now with the "D.C. Madame" releasing her phone records to the public my blogging "friend" is looking forward with glee to the outing of some more conservatives. That's not enough for him though. He's even on record publicly hoping that it will drive some conservatives to commit suicide. Yet this same "man" says that he's not bringing "hate" into our discussions. Instead he accuses me of doing so.

I HATE arguing with liberals. I really do. I hate it so much that I've had to cool down for a few days before I felt I was ready to post again. Now you know why.