This sums it up; What a Liberal Does on the Fourth of July

I've posted this same article for a few years now, it's a blast from the past that unfortunately needs stated time and again. Conservatives and the right- wing don't have a monopoly on patriotism or pride in their country. And in this age of Trumpism it will be the liberals that just might save us from totalitarianism.


By Dan Bimrose,Founder, LiberalFix.com
Post @ Huffingtonpost.com
6/30/11

For certain elements of society the word liberal has become interchangeable with such words as communist, socialist and fascist.

While liberals such as myself choose to associate themselves with such historic figures as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, those same elements of society would suggest that each of us tree hugging "ne-er do wells" have a secret room with a secret wall painted red and devoted to displaying pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Lenin.

On a day when we should all celebrate our nation and some of us recount historically accurate stories of our nation's birth, there are members of society who find it difficult to imagine that it would be possible for self-styled liberals, progressives and Democrats to find cause for celebration on the Fourth of July.

This all too common charge that those like us are unpatriotic and un-American is an allegation that I take great umbrage with.

By definition conservatives and liberals do not think alike and that is just fine. The idea, however, that liberals are unpatriotic is absurd. Those who say such things are guilty of one of two things, they are either ignorant or they are lying with the intent of influencing your opinion so that it more closely represents their opinion.

Liberals do find it difficult to stomach the assertion that our founding fathers believed that there is an inherit bias toward discrimination in the documents and actions produced by those very same founding fathers.

I will allow that the 3/5 compromise which allowed for slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a white man for the purpose of determining a states representation in Congress, and the lack of a provision guaranteeing women the right to vote were monumental fails in regards to discrimination. The need to compromise to achieve a bigger goal allowed for these fails to exist.

Time, acquired wisdom, and progress would eventually fix these wrongs. Liberals respect, honor and cherish the Constitution as an evolving document capable of being changed when we as a nation are ready for change.

We believe that the founders had it right when they said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." We believe this to be the very worthy intent of our founding fathers.

We acknowledge conservatives love the Constitution as well. Well, they love certain parts of the Constitution. Different conservative groups would love to repeal a variety of amendments including the 8th, the 14th, the 16th, the 17th, the 19th and possibly the 26th amendment.

Liberals do believe that children born in the inner city or poverty stricken rural areas deserve the same access to health care as blue bloods spending the holiday on Martha's Vineyard. We are not unpatriotic because we believe this. Perhaps you could call us compassionate, but not unpatriotic.

We understand that we pass on more to our children than just budgets and balance sheets. We also pass on the environment and the planet to our children and grandchildren. Regardless of whether or not we feel that global warming is real or a myth we still value clean water and clean air.

We may not appreciate the wars we are currently fighting in the Middle East, but we love and respect our soldiers. After all they are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, wives and husbands.

We believe that teachers, policeman and firefighters should be paid and paid well due to their value and service to our community.

We believe that all of our children deserve libraries, gym class, and the opportunity to star in their school play.

We believe our country is great because we are a melting pot, not in spite of it. We value diversity. This is the American Way. This was the American dream.

We pay our taxes, but think that the wealthiest amongst us and the most profitable industries can share in bearing a little extra burden to fix our government's mistakes.

We believe that our senior citizens are people who have served our countries and their families well. They deserve not just our respect, but the ability to retire with the reasonable assurance that their health needs and financial needs will be met.

No, we do not agree with everything and most of the time we do not agree with anything, but it is not necessary to call each other unpatriotic or un-American. Liberals do not think conservatives are evil, we just think they are wrong. Perhaps some of the name calling conservatives out there will learn that liberals are Americans too.

What will I be doing this 4th of July?

More than likely my children will wake me up early so that we can go to the local parade, but before we leave for the parade I will hang our flag outside.

I am assuming and hoping the day will be filled with at least two Italian sausages smothered in onions, one elephant ear, and multiple lemon shake-ups. At the parade I will shake hands with a few elected officials, but reserve my support and encouragement for those politicians that are Democrats. In my part of Indiana, they need all the help they can get.

I will conclude the day by watching the local fireworks display right before rushing home to put the kids in the tub so I can clean off the cotton candy that has become caked on their faces. With any luck I will not have to get out the tweezers to remove a roasted peanut from my youngest daughter's ear.

We will go straight from the tub to the bedroom where we will sing songs and the kids will say their prayers before being tucked in and given strict orders to "sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite".

So what do liberals do on the 4th of July?

Pretty much the same thing everyone else does.

Happy 4th of July and God Bless America.

VOX: How To Talk To A Conservative About Climate Change

Debbie Dooley, one of the founders of the Tea Party movement and a Donald Trump supporter, has some advice for talking to conservatives about climate change.



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What a Liberal Does on the Fourth of July

A blast from the past that I think sums it up pretty well.

By Dan Bimrose,Founder, LiberalFix.com
Post @ Huffingtonpost.com
6/30/11

For certain elements of society the word liberal has become interchangeable with such words as communist, socialist and fascist.

While liberals such as myself choose to associate themselves with such historic figures as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, those same elements of society would suggest that each of us tree hugging "ne-er do wells" have a secret room with a secret wall painted red and devoted to displaying pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Lenin.

On a day when we should all celebrate our nation and some of us recount historically accurate stories of our nation's birth, there are members of society who find it difficult to imagine that it would be possible for self-styled liberals, progressives and Democrats to find cause for celebration on the Fourth of July.

This all too common charge that those like us are unpatriotic and un-American is an allegation that I take great umbrage with.

By definition conservatives and liberals do not think alike and that is just fine. The idea, however, that liberals are unpatriotic is absurd. Those who say such things are guilty of one of two things, they are either ignorant or they are lying with the intent of influencing your opinion so that it more closely represents their opinion.

Liberals do find it difficult to stomach the assertion that our founding fathers believed that there is an inherit bias toward discrimination in the documents and actions produced by those very same founding fathers.

I will allow that the 3/5 compromise which allowed for slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a white man for the purpose of determining a states representation in Congress, and the lack of a provision guaranteeing women the right to vote were monumental fails in regards to discrimination. The need to compromise to achieve a bigger goal allowed for these fails to exist.

Time, acquired wisdom, and progress would eventually fix these wrongs. Liberals respect, honor and cherish the Constitution as an evolving document capable of being changed when we as a nation are ready for change.

We believe that the founders had it right when they said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." We believe this to be the very worthy intent of our founding fathers.

We acknowledge conservatives love the Constitution as well. Well, they love certain parts of the Constitution. Different conservative groups would love to repeal a variety of amendments including the 8th, the 14th, the 16th, the 17th, the 19th and possibly the 26th amendment.

Liberals do believe that children born in the inner city or poverty stricken rural areas deserve the same access to health care as blue bloods spending the holiday on Martha's Vineyard. We are not unpatriotic because we believe this. Perhaps you could call us compassionate, but not unpatriotic.

We understand that we pass on more to our children than just budgets and balance sheets. We also pass on the environment and the planet to our children and grandchildren. Regardless of whether or not we feel that global warming is real or a myth we still value clean water and clean air.

We may not appreciate the wars we are currently fighting in the Middle East, but we love and respect our soldiers. After all they are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, wives and husbands.

We believe that teachers, policeman and firefighters should be paid and paid well due to their value and service to our community.

We believe that all of our children deserve libraries, gym class, and the opportunity to star in their school play.

We believe our country is great because we are a melting pot, not in spite of it. We value diversity. This is the American Way. This was the American dream.

We pay our taxes, but think that the wealthiest amongst us and the most profitable industries can share in bearing a little extra burden to fix our government's mistakes.

We believe that our senior citizens are people who have served our countries and their families well. They deserve not just our respect, but the ability to retire with the reasonable assurance that their health needs and financial needs will be met.

No, we do not agree with everything and most of the time we do not agree with anything, but it is not necessary to call each other unpatriotic or un-American. Liberals do not think conservatives are evil, we just think they are wrong. Perhaps some of the name calling conservatives out there will learn that liberals are Americans too.

What will I be doing this 4th of July?

More than likely my children will wake me up early so that we can go to the local parade, but before we leave for the parade I will hang our flag outside.

I am assuming and hoping the day will be filled with at least two Italian sausages smothered in onions, one elephant ear, and multiple lemon shake-ups. At the parade I will shake hands with a few elected officials, but reserve my support and encouragement for those politicians that are Democrats. In my part of Indiana, they need all the help they can get.

I will conclude the day by watching the local fireworks display right before rushing home to put the kids in the tub so I can clean off the cotton candy that has become caked on their faces. With any luck I will not have to get out the tweezers to remove a roasted peanut from my youngest daughter's ear.

We will go straight from the tub to the bedroom where we will sing songs and the kids will say their prayers before being tucked in and given strict orders to "sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite".

So what do liberals do on the 4th of July?

Pretty much the same thing everyone else does.

Happy 4th of July and God Bless America.

Could Chris Christie Republicans be the biggest losers?

And so it begins, the Republicans from the far-right waste no time bashing Christie after his election victory on Tuesday, he he he ...

The Virginia race strips away almost any reason why conservatives should not look toward a third party in 2016, as the national Republicans attempt to foist another "candidate who can win" down their throats.

By Rick Manning - NetRightDaily

National political pundits are busily fluffing up the narrative that the 2013 gubernatorial election has made New Jersey Governor Chris Christie the front runner for the Republican nod for president in 2016, while the narrow loss by conservative Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor's race spells the beginning of the end for the conservative movement.

The Washington Times writes in its coverage of the New Jersey Governor's race that the decision by Democrats to not put up a credible challenge to incumbent Chris Christie, "… helped to clear the path for Mr. Christie to drive up his margin of victory in the governor's race, which political observers and Republican insiders said would send a message that the national party can broaden its appeal and bolster its brand without tacking to the tea party right.

They are wrong for at least three reasons. Two of these are tactical and one is strategic.

New Jersey Governor Christie dramatically increased his own electability during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy when just prior to the 2012 presidential election, he went out of his way to embrace President Obama, earning support within the state, and enmity from Republicans around the country. Few outside of New Jersey will forget the damage Christie's hug did to the Party's chances to defeat Obama.

The result is that the very same event that helped propel Christie's in-state popularity will be disastrous for him outside the state.

On the other hand, the Virginia governor's race was decided by one percent with Democrat Terry McAuliffe receiving well under a majority of the votes after significantly outspending Republican Cuccinelli. Two campaign tricks tipped the scales to McAuliffe and each were worthy of his sleazy reputation.

A major Obama fundraiser/cash bundler was discovered in the last days of the campaign to have been the primary funder of the third party "Libertarian" candidate revealing that he was nothing more than a shill put up by the left to siphon votes from the other economic freedom candidate in the race – Cuccinelli. The third party candidate libertarian poser received more than 6 percent of the total vote.

The second dirty trick engaged in by McAuliffe was a robocall perpetrated by the Virginia Democratic Party to conservative voters alleging that Cuccinelli supported Obamacare. This admission of the unpopularity of Obama's signature achievement was an overt lie, as Cuccinelli was the first Attorney General in the nation to challenge Obamacare in court. The tactic was designed to suppress likely Cuccinelli voters who opposed the law, but were so disgusted by Republican cave-ins in D.C. that they were susceptible to this type of attack.

Thirty years ago, in one of my first political campaigns I was taught a truism that no longer is valid. After I got done complaining about how we were being unfairly treated in the media, my boss answered, "They have the media and we have the money, our job is to spend that money effectively so we can beat their free media advantage."

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Democrat had the media, an approximate two to one spending advantage and the help of a third very important group – the institutional Republicans who continually bad mouthed the conservative candidate and sat on their collective thumbs hoping Cuccinelli would lose so they could declare that only a moderate could win.

The 2.5 percent loss proves that these Republicans who always try to foist "electable" candidates who stand for nothing in primaries would rather deny a conservative victory than have their narrative be proven wrong. If anything the fact that Ken Cuccinelli barely lost after being pilloried in the media without the resources to make his case is an affirmation that conservative principles are winners when people hear them articulated.

Unlike in New Jersey where the Republican moderate dominated his opponent in campaign cash, and the Democrats chose not to run a campaign against him, Cuccinelli was literally starved of funds and support by the Republican chattering class. The Republican National Committee whose sole purpose is to elect Republican candidates failed to produce anywhere near the nine million dollars they pumped into Virginia four years earlier — it was just $3 million this time — in one of the most obvious acts of "friendly fire" campaign sabotage.

Strategically this has major implications for these professional Republican operatives who have already publicly declared war on their Party's political base.

The Virginia race strips away almost any reason why conservatives should not look toward a third party in 2016, as the national Republicans attempt to foist another "candidate who can win" down their throats.

Politically, this puts the Republican ruling class in deep trouble. If someone like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin were to run as a third party alternative to a Christie-type, it is difficult to find a single state that Christie or someone of his ilk would carry. And it is relatively easy to identify at least twenty states where a third party Palin would likely be favored over both Christie and a Democrat opponent.

Sometimes you can win a battle but lose the war, in the next couple of year's establishment Republicans may just find themselves wishing they had gone all-in for the conservative in Virginia, as Ken Cuccinelli could become the symbol of the one way relationship they expect from their much despised political base.

If given a choice, that base just might figure out that they never actually needed the Republican Party bosses after all. When that happens, the Republican Party will go the way of the Whigs and a new, populist, limited government party will take its place.


Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government.

Liberals Are Smarter Than Conservatives

I  knew it but nobody would listen, I always said that Liberals were smarter than Conservatives, now it seems to be confirmed:

Addicting Info -  

Two interesting new studies have come out during this election season, which might have liberals and conservatives at odds more than ever.

Last year, a study done at Brock University suggested that a lower I.Q. goes hand in hand with both racism and conservative beliefs. The findings are published in Psychological Science and the study is entitled “Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact.”

Essentially, the study examines the impact of cognitive ability on social attitudes like prejudice and conservatism. The authors predicted that a lower cognitive ability, as measured by the subject’s intelligence quotient or I.Q., would lead to greater social prejudice in adulthood. The authors also hypothesized beforehand that the social prejudice would lead the subjects to endorse “right-wing ideologies”, namely “social conservatism” and “right-wing authoritarianism.” 

Turns out, the authors were right on all counts....

On income taxes and job creation, history debunks GOP views

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Sunday, July 17, 2011

We’re used to politicians stretching the truth, but this is getting ridiculous. For months now, congressional Republicans have refused to support any debt ceiling and budget deal that would raise taxes on the wealthy because, these economic wizards tell us, the rich are “job creators.”

Tax increases would discourage these job genies from expanding their businesses. Unemployment, already at 9.2 percent (which says something about the job-creation myth, doesn’t it?), would get even worse, they insist. The problem with this economic philosophy? It’s garbage.

Even Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, knows that: “The rich are always going to say, ‘Just give us more money and we’ll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you.’ But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

The American public, it seems, is catching on, even if Republicans want to twist the truth about that, too. Speaker of the House John Boehner keeps insisting, “The American people don’t want us to raise taxes.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor says, “This economy is ailing and we don’t believe, nor do the American people believe, raising taxes is the answer.”

Think again. Americans believe Congress should raise taxes on the wealthy.

A new Quinnipiac survey asked voters if they support a budget deal with only budget cuts or a blend of cuts and taxes on corporations and the rich. Only 25 percent said cuts only. Sixty-seven percent want cuts and a tax increase on the wealthy.

Republican leaders are not only misrepresenting what the American people want, they’re covering up Republican numbers, too. In a recent Gallup poll, only 26 percent of Republicans favored lowering the debt with cuts alone. In just about every poll — ABC News, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Reuters — Americans want spending cuts and they want the wealthy to pay a larger share.

But maybe the American people are wrong. Let’s check the history. Did giving the wealthy a break with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 help create jobs? Uh, no. From the end of the 2000-01 recession, just when the first Bush tax cuts took effect, until the beginning of the Great Recession, the economy grew at a slower pace than in any postrecession recovery period since World War II. Pay, adjusted for inflation, fell. And it took 39 months to get the number of jobs back to where it was before the 2000-01 recession.

Despite the same promises of jobs, the economy limped along. And the additional tax cut in 2003 didn’t rev it up, either.

President Bill Clinton faced vociferous opposition to his 1993 budget plan, which raised the top tax rates from 31 percent to 39.6 percent. Republicans called it the “Kevorkian Plan.”

So, what happened? Unparalleled economic growth. The nation’s unemployment dropped from 6.9 percent to 4 percent. The deficit shrank, and in 1998, the federal government boasted a surplus for the first time since 1969.

It seems the economy can survive a tax hike on the wealthy after all. And the tax hike did wonders to reduce the deficit as well, as designed.

More evidence: During the 1950s and early 1960s, when America experienced sustained growth, marginal tax rates on the rich were the highest they’ve ever been — 91 percent for the top bracket. (Even President Ronald Reagan, the Republican economic poster boy, raised taxes after he cut them.)

But Republicans keep chanting the same nonsense — without offering historical evidence to back it up. Instead, they want to bring the nation to the brink of default while protecting corporations (who are sitting on billions in profits) and fat cats — while everyday Americans are squeezed by high gas and food prices, plunging home prices and lower wages.

Let’s call the job-creator stuff what it is: a myth.

Want to avoid another Depression? Try understanding the first one.

By Robert S. McElvaine -
the Washington Post /published July 10th,2011

“I have seen the future, and it works,” journalist Lincoln Steffens famously said of his 1919 visit to Bolshevik Russia. Guided by his economic faith, Steffens saw the future as he wanted it to be, not as it would be.

What excuse do we have when we follow people who, guided by a different economic faith, see the past as they want it to have been, not as it was? Today, under the influence of leaders blinded to facts by certain faith, we are careening toward a repetition of mistakes that led to catastrophe.

A CNN poll conducted in June found that almost half of Americans now think that another Great Depression is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to occur within the next 12 months.

There is a genuine danger that the already weak economy could turn into a second coming of the hard times of the 1930s. The focus of many politicians today on cutting spending and avoiding tax increases on the wealthy is based on a misunderstanding of what led to and extended the Great Depression — and it is setting us up for a new collapse.

Most people realize that a failure to raise the debt ceiling could be catastrophic. But the drastic cuts in federal spending that some Republicans are demanding in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling would be a repeat of the mistakes that prevented a full recovery in the 1930s and then caused a secondary collapse in 1937.

With the economy in a precarious position, slashing spending, concentrating ever more wealth and income at the top, and blocking effective regulation is a
prescription for disaster.

In fact, the first part of this prescription is very similar to one written by Dr. New Deal himself. Fearful of massive budget deficits, President Franklin Roosevelt cut back on spending as soon as his 1936 re-election was secured, plunging the economy into a renewed free fall that introduced the word “recession” into our lexicon so as to avoid calling the collapse a renewed depression.

Yet that is the course upon which a unified Republican Party is insisting. For their part, President Barack Obama and many Democrats have ceded the battlefield and are just trying to reduce the number of casualties.

Conservatives appear to be united behind a set of beliefs that are dangerously wrong. Theirs is a faith-based economics that contrasts with fact-based economics; their god is named the Market. Their economics is as immune to facts as its opposite, Marxism. Call it Marketism. A devout Marketist believes that the Market is always right and any government intervention is, well, sinful.

For more than two generations, the Great Depression discredited this religion. But beginning around 1980, with the election of Ronald Reagan, the Marketists staged a revival.

One of my students brilliantly, if accidentally, captured the essence of this economic fundamentalism in a journal entry a few years ago: “During his presidency, Reagan implemented sloppy-side economics.” It is that sloppy-side economics that conservatives have been pushing ever since, and the more it fails, the harder they push it.

During the Great Depression, Roosevelt called for “bold, persistent experimentation” and said: “It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

But the position of faithful Marketists, then and now, is this: Take their method and try it. If it fails, deny its failure and try it again, and again, and again. But above all, keep trying the same thing.

Since the beginning of the Obama administration, Republicans have been working unstintingly to misread the history of the Depression and implement policies similar to those that led to the collapses of 1929 and 2008. “One of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declared early in 2009. “And we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15 percent. And it’s widely agreed among economists that what got us out of the doldrums that we were in during the Depression was the beginning of World War II.”

Well, yes — but that fact demonstrates just the opposite of what Marketist fundamentalists argue.

It is plain that the reason the New Deal failed to end the Depression is not that Roosevelt and Congress overspent, but that they underspent. The New Deal was not too reckless in its spending; it was too cautious. The war ended the Depression precisely because it obliged Roosevelt and Congress to spend greater and greater amounts without worrying about where the money was coming from.

The basic reason that the Obama administration has not yet ended the economic disaster it inherited is the same reason that prevented the New Deal from ending the Depression FDR inherited: It hasn’t spent enough. The 2009 stimulus staved off a
second Great Depression, but it should have been much larger to produce a genuine recovery. Subsequently, even with majorities in both houses, the Democrats let the GOP define the argument and failed to force through needed programs to get the economy back on its feet.

It has been the alleged “socialism” of the New Deal that has prevented another Depression for seven decades. While a market-based economy is clearly the best system, it carries serious risks. Government intervention minimizes those risks for businesses and for people — just a spoonful of “socialism” helps the capitalism go up.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” Mark Twain is said to have remarked. To the extent that our current history sounds like the 1930s, it is because of the lack of sense on the part of politicians. We know better than to slash spending and allow the rich to become even richer in a weak economy, but we’re set on doing it anyway.

If there is a new Great Depression, it won’t be without rhyme, but it will be without reason.

Robert S. McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College, is the author of “The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941.”

What a Liberal Does on the Fourth of July

I think this sums it up pretty well

By Dan Bimrose,Founder, LiberalFix.com
Post @ Huffingtonpost.com
6/30/11

For certain elements of society the word liberal has become interchangeable with such words as communist, socialist and fascist.

While liberals such as myself choose to associate themselves with such historic figures as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, those same elements of society would suggest that each of us tree hugging "ne-er do wells" have a secret room with a secret wall painted red and devoted to displaying pictures of Hitler, Mussolini and Lenin.

On a day when we should all celebrate our nation and some of us recount historically accurate stories of our nation's birth, there are members of society who find it difficult to imagine that it would be possible for self-styled liberals, progressives and Democrats to find cause for celebration on the Fourth of July.

This all too common charge that those like us are unpatriotic and un-American is an allegation that I take great umbrage with.

By definition conservatives and liberals do not think alike and that is just fine. The idea, however, that liberals are unpatriotic is absurd. Those who say such things are guilty of one of two things, they are either ignorant or they are lying with the intent of influencing your opinion so that it more closely represents their opinion.

Liberals do find it difficult to stomach the assertion that our founding fathers believed that there is an inherit bias toward discrimination in the documents and actions produced by those very same founding fathers.

I will allow that the 3/5 compromise which allowed for slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a white man for the purpose of determining a states representation in Congress, and the lack of a provision guaranteeing women the right to vote were monumental fails in regards to discrimination. The need to compromise to achieve a bigger goal allowed for these fails to exist.

Time, acquired wisdom, and progress would eventually fix these wrongs. Liberals respect, honor and cherish the Constitution as an evolving document capable of being changed when we as a nation are ready for change.

We believe that the founders had it right when they said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." We believe this to be the very worthy intent of our founding fathers.

We acknowledge conservatives love the Constitution as well. Well, they love certain parts of the Constitution. Different conservative groups would love to repeal a variety of amendments including the 8th, the 14th, the 16th, the 17th, the 19th and possibly the 26th amendment.

Liberals do believe that children born in the inner city or poverty stricken rural areas deserve the same access to health care as blue bloods spending the holiday on Martha's Vineyard. We are not unpatriotic because we believe this. Perhaps you could call us compassionate, but not unpatriotic.

We understand that we pass on more to our children than just budgets and balance sheets. We also pass on the environment and the planet to our children and grandchildren. Regardless of whether or not we feel that global warming is real or a myth we still value clean water and clean air.

We may not appreciate the wars we are currently fighting in the Middle East, but we love and respect our soldiers. After all they are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, wives and husbands.

We believe that teachers, policeman and firefighters should be paid and paid well due to their value and service to our community.

We believe that all of our children deserve libraries, gym class, and the opportunity to star in their school play.

We believe our country is great because we are a melting pot, not in spite of it. We value diversity. This is the American Way. This was the American dream.

We pay our taxes, but think that the wealthiest amongst us and the most profitable industries can share in bearing a little extra burden to fix our government's mistakes.

We believe that our senior citizens are people who have served our countries and their families well. They deserve not just our respect, but the ability to retire with the reasonable assurance that their health needs and financial needs will be met.

No, we do not agree with everything and most of the time we do not agree with anything, but it is not necessary to call each other unpatriotic or un-American. Liberals do not think conservatives are evil, we just think they are wrong. Perhaps some of the name calling conservatives out there will learn that liberals are Americans too.

What will I be doing this 4th of July?

More than likely my children will wake me up early so that we can go to the local parade, but before we leave for the parade I will hang our flag outside.

I am assuming and hoping the day will be filled with at least two Italian sausages smothered in onions, one elephant ear, and multiple lemon shake-ups. At the parade I will shake hands with a few elected officials, but reserve my support and encouragement for those politicians that are Democrats. In my part of Indiana, they need all the help they can get.

I will conclude the day by watching the local fireworks display right before rushing home to put the kids in the tub so I can clean off the cotton candy that has become caked on their faces. With any luck I will not have to get out the tweezers to remove a roasted peanut from my youngest daughter's ear.

We will go straight from the tub to the bedroom where we will sing songs and the kids will say their prayers before being tucked in and given strict orders to "sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite".

So what do liberals do on the 4th of July?

Pretty much the same thing everyone else does.

Happy 4th of July and God Bless America.

Conservatives Are Crazy

By Danny Democrat @ NJDems.com

A 2003 study published by the American Psychological Association concluded that political conservatism is rooted in “fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity” and other psychological factors.

According to the article, “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition,” four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature report that the core of the right-wing ideology is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality. http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml

The emergence of the Tea Party movement has ignited passion among the most extreme adherents of conservatism in Republican politics, a phenomenon ending the careers of many longtime GOP establishment politicians.

Terror management is another psychological factor that influences conservatism, along with a need for certainty and cognitive closure. These primal instincts help define what makes a political conservative at a time in history when human survival probably depends upon a greater adherence to logic and reason.

Research has shown that people in a state of distress by nature are prone to the allure of charismatic leaders but it’s hard to imagine what would have happened if unbridled emotions drove the Kennedy white House in October 1962 instead of cool intellect. http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days/index.html

Tea bag conservatives reject science as part of their blind loyalty to discredited anti-intellectual ideas and self-righteous faith-based morality, because by not allowing facts to dillute their perspective, they achieve the certainty they prize. http://silentmajority09.com/2010/09/24/conservatives-assault-science/

The leading tea baggers exhibit ultra-conservative craziness that seems to be overlooked by many voters who would normally object the their agenda: Ken Buck, Christine O’Donnell, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle,Carl Paladino, Mike Lee, Joe Miller, Marco Rubio and others. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/15/september-14-primary-elec_1_n_717242.html

Colorado Republican Ken Buck wants to outlaw birth control and a common fertility treatment and he says teenage rape victims should be forced to have babies. http://www.9news.com/news/elections/article.aspx?storyid=151144&catid=140

Republicans advocate a regressive 30 percent sales tax on everything you buy – which they call ‘the fair tax’ — while cutting income taxes again for the richest three percent of the people, tax breaks for multinational corporations that export American jobs. http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html Regressive taxes make the poorest pay higher rates than the wealthy so Republicans are entirely disconnected from the American people, even if some Democratic incumbents have disappointed many people.

Republicans want to repeal President Obama’s Wall Street reforms, repeal the new rules that stop insurance companies from dumping sick children, repeal changes helping America’s war veterans — and then they want to tie down the administration with subpoenas and investigations that will preclude the president from solving any real problems facing Americans. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20011464-503544.html

Social Security and Medicare are one again in the Republican crosshairs, with Rep. John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, planning to cut benefits and raise the retirement age. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/106135-boehner-raise-social-securitys-retirement-age-to-70

The author of the GOP agenda, Paul Ryan, has put a plan on the table would end Medicare as we know it and leave the nation’s seniors to the private insurance industry. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-Klein/2010/08/paul_ryans_plan_would_end_medi.html

Most of these ideas are well outside the main stream but if Democrats keep pushing for health reform, jobs creation, restrictions on Wall Street and credit cards — essentially all the things they stand for — then they could be in for more than a political fight.

Nevada Republican Sharron Angle said armed rebellion against the federal government saying, “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies…” and she sought support from members of a right-wing extremist group, “The Oath Keepers,” whose members are police or military personnel who believe they need not follow orders and which was formed “In response to the obscene growth of federal power and to the absurdly totalitarian claimed powers of the Executive…” http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/reid-opponent-embraces-patriot-group-that-warns-of-giant-concentration-camps.php

Perhaps to enable ‘those Second Amendment remedies,’ for political New Jersey state Sen. Jeff Van Drew wants to make it easier for residents to carry handguns. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/nj_senator_pushes_law_allowing.html

The bizarre policy positions are weighted with even more extreme anti-government craziness. According to a Sothern Pverty Law Center report: “U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she feared that the president was planning ‘reeducation camps for young people,’ while U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), evoking memories of the discredited communist-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy, warned of 17 ’socialists’ in Congress.” http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/main/The_Second_Wave.pdf

The same report stated:

[Fox News host Glenn] Beck is just one of the well-known cable TV news personalities to air fictitious conspiracies and other unlikely Patriot ideas. CNN’s Lou Dobbs has treated the so-called Aztlan conspiracy as a bona fide concern and questioned the validity of Obama’s birth certificate despite his own network’s definitive -debunking of that claim. On MSNBC, commentator Pat Buchanan suggested recently that white Americans are now suffering “exactly what was done to black folks.” On FOX News, regular contributor Dick Morris said, “Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’ — well, they’re beginning to have a case.”

The insane ideas are being backed up by action. The Second Wave includes a chapter outlining 75 right-wing terrorist plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since 1995, when conservative Republican Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people, including 19 children in a day-care center, and injuring another 500. http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/main/The_Second_Wave.pdf

In March 2010, after the report was published, nine Hutaree militia members were arrested in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, for alleged involvement in a plot to murder a law enforcement officer and then attack police officers at the funeral using illegal explosives and firearms in order to incite revolution against the government. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQlDq4d5Js2bVnV83z7R1ORbsZPA

People who make up the Tea Party movement are largely conservative and get their news from Fox; they’re generally old and of moderate to low income; and they’re fairly convinced that their taxes are going to rise in the next few years, even though they won’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/tea-party-survey-old-cons_n_522336.html

“It’s the type of group that would likely benefit the most from Democratic governance, with commitments to Social Security, Medicare, and middle-class job creation,” said that report.

Tea baggers also have exceedingly poor views of President Obama. In the aforementioned poll, 81 percent disapproved of his job performance.

The scientific research identified the paranoia and obsession with certainty associated with conservatism but here are some hard examples of how they depart from reality and embrace delusion:

Fueling the myth mongering that Barack Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a recent interview that the president may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/246302/gingrich-obama-s-kenyan-anti-colonial-worldview-robert-costa

Southern Baptist Pastor Carl Gallups suggests Obama isn’t just Kenyan — he’s also the Antichrist.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/feature/2009/07/31/antichrist/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgHUZXgNAWo
http://www.hickoryhammockbaptist.org/interview.html

Such lunacy is not being immediately rejected by voters. Crazed tea baggers won Republican nominations for seven U.S. Senate seats, for New York governor and for dozens of seats in Congress. They are all over the place on ballots for city council, mayor, plus county and state offices.

A Harris poll cemented the notion of the scary conservative who believes that President Obama is many things that, factually, he is not.

The Harris Poll of 2,320 adults surveyed online between March 1 and 8, 2010 finds that large numbers of Tea Party supporters have not just extremely hostile opinions of President Obama but believe many of the false statements about him circulated on cable news and the internet.

The numbers among Tea Party supporters are scary, indeed: 67% believe the President is a socialist, although Harris didn’t do anything to verify that respondents knew what that word meant. More than half believe he is a Muslim,

The real sizzlers, are the 45% who believe he wasn’t born in the US, and the 25% who say he “may be the Antichrist” and 24% who say he wants the terrorists to win. These people think our president is a Nazi-esque Muslim Antichrist. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/117/Default.aspx

The Republican leadership’s willingness to flirt with ideas like the birth certificate conspiracy, or their insistence that health care reform is an “apocalypse,” paints all Republicans as unhinged loons and obliterate conservative credibility.

If you are still thinking about voting Republican, please see a mental health professional at once.

The Daily Show Video: Sour Gropes

Jon Steward discusses Glenn Beck's interview with Eric Massa and learns that it wasn't a total waste of time -- he got a new sign-off phrase!

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Brains of Liberals, Conservatives May Work Differently

Hat tip to my good friend and former clamdigger Jim Purcell for sending this my way, it allowed me to discover the tips for making New Year's Resolutions in the previous post.

Does brain function for liberals and conservatives occur differently, creating set differences? The editor at Psych Central says there is research that points to the answer being 'yes'.

My mother always told me that I was special, now I know why:

Research published over the weekend shows that brains of liberals and conservatives may be constructed and work differently.

In a study likely to raise the hackles of some conservatives, scientists at New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, found that a specific region of the brain’s cortex is more sensitive in people who consider themselves liberals than in self-declared conservatives.

The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking.

“Say you drive home from work the same way every day, but one day there’s a detour and you need to override your autopilot,” said NYU psychologist David Amodio. “Most people function just fine. But there’s a little variability in how sensitive people are to the cue that they need to change their current course.”

The work, to be reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, grew out of decades of previous research suggesting that political orientation is linked to certain personality traits or styles of thinking. A review of that research published in 2003 found that conservatives tend to be more rigid and closed-minded, less tolerant of ambiguity and less open to new experiences. Some of the traits associated with conservatives in that review were decidedly unflattering, including fear, aggression and tolerance of inequality. That evoked outrage from conservative pundits.

The latest study showed “there are two cognitive styles — a liberal style and a conservative style,” said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected with the latest research.

Linda Skitka, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said it’s possible the liberals in the recent study appeared more flexible than the conservatives because the population was skewed.

“We’re more likely to find extreme conservatives in the U.S. than extreme liberals,” she said....

Read more >>> Here

Right-wing bloggers see their chance

Leading the News-

Conservative groups are not celebrating the election of Barack Obama, with perhaps one exception: right-wing bloggers, who see a ripe opportunity to catch up with the left.

A Washington in the hands of Democrats offers online pundits on the right a fresh political target and a chance to vent against their ideological opponents. The reverse scenario allowed their liberal counterparts to blossom during the blogosphere’s infancy, when the GOP controlled the Congress and the Bush administration held power between 2003 and 2006.

But the aptly named “rightosphere,” much like its liberal counterpart, “the netroots,” doesn’t simply want to criticize the other team. It sees this as its time to reshape the Republican Party.
“The rightosphere will be much better when the right has something to oppose,” said Jon Henke, who writes at The Next Right.

Obama and Democrats will eventually provide conservatives with a “unifying grievance” that they can seize on. On the Democratic agenda could be universal healthcare proposals that would expand government programs, union-backed card-check legislation that would allow workers to bypass secret-ballot elections when unionizing, and calls to reverse momentum to expand offshore drilling, Henke said.

Being in the opposition is also a natural posture for conservatives, who want smaller government but have seen GOP lawmakers in the last few years create more federal programs, expand the deficit and spend greater sums of taxpayer dollars....

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