Will you take my hand, or spit on it? ZOT it!

11/8/06 | Joshua Lander

[landeraepi]

Full disclosure, I'm a democrat, so get over it. I'm not here to insult you, and I'm certainly not here to gloat. I'm not here to trade barbs, undermine Free Republic, or infiltrate your ranks. I'll be honest — I disagree with most FReepers on almost every issue.

So, why am I posting a new thread?

Because I — we — need you. We at Democratic Underground and Daily Kos, and all of the lefty blogs you love to hate, and who love to hate you. We need you to acknowledge that if there's one thing we're learning about our country's political system, it's that there's way too much corruption. Too much greed. Cronyism. Lying. It's on both sides, folks — I'm no apologist.

Yes, the Democrats won. Yes, we're very happy about that. It means we get to put the emergency brake on what we see as runaway irresponsibility in our government. Some of you FReepers see it, too — the Bush administration is spending like Paris Hilton on a bender and Harry Reid is spending his afternoons thinking about how to double his real estate money instead of how to lead his minority majority. Result? America's losing its ethical center.

Indulge me for a moment: we at Daily Kos and Democratic Underground are ecstatic for one particular reason that it may be difficult for FReepers to understand. Candidates like Jon Tester, Jerry McNerney, Paul Hodes, and Jim Webb were all relative political unknowns — guys with great ideas who just had no "street cred" at all. The lefty blogs — dKos and DU, chiefly, coordinated the fundraising and did the canvassing, calling, and late-night video posting on YouTube.

We wanted this one like rabid dogs, and we got it. You guys will win again, and win big, but this time it was the democrats. If Jon Tester and Jerry McNerney begin taking money from lobbyists and accepting flights on Learjets, do you know what we'd do?

We'd castrate them. We'd end them. Ask a DUer — if these guys let Washington's corruption get under their skin, we'll vote against them.

But the truth is that they won't. I know this because that's why we picked them. They're committed to bringing some civility and dignity back to our country's political system — and so am I.

And, hopefully, so are you.

So, today, I'm reaching across the aisle, in earnest, and in what I hope you will realize is good faith. America isn't America without all of us, and I'm not about to let this election force us to self-segregate and turn into the epitome of what we hate. This country wasn't founded on ideological differences. America was founded as a place for people with unpopular beliefs. That's why the Puritans came here — and why everyone else followed.

Disagreement is no justification for acrimony.

If Free Republic joined with Daily Kos and DU to denounce corruption, cronyism, and dishonesty in government — regardless of our political stripes — we'll all be better for it.

I'm cross-posting a similar thread to dKos and DU in the hopes that the netroots on both sides can come together to reorient our government's ethical compass. Let's agree to disagree, but let's do it in an American way — in a way that helps all of us. We can (and should!) continue to fight for our personal morals, beliefs, and ideas — but we must ensure that our government, no matter which party controls it, is still a government of, by, and for the people.

So, come on, FReepers. Let's fix this country. Concentrate on common ground instead of ideological divisions. What do we all believe, and how can we leverage the immense power and respect of the blogosphere to do the most good?

I wish you all the best, and I'm sorry if I've ruined your day.

[beezdotcom]

He's probably all of 12.

Maybe...in the other thread, though, he said he was 26.

[PzLdr]

More like having the root canal done by a proctologist.

[Choose Ye This Day]

I'd like to believe that, I really, really would.

I just get the feeling that both parties would stink if we peeled back the public veneer a little.

I think Washington is a cesspool of cronyism, corruption, and greased palms, and I think it is a pathetically bipartisan enterprise.

[Choose Ye This Day]

How about limiting lobbyist conributions to a reasonable amount per election cycle?

Define "reasonable." But, yeah, I could go for that. I'm not sure how your trial lawyers will feel, though.

Or funding elections through personal contributions only?

No problem, Sparky. Your Unions will raise hell, though.

Here's one for you: How about a line-item veto?

[Choose Ye This Day]

Plan? What's a plan? You mean, we have to, like, have issues and stuff?

< /Dem blather>

[Slings and Arrows]

*Ptui!*

[Mr. Silverback]

The problem is that you expect me to find common ground with people who hate my religion with a passion that even the satanic church doesn't possess, hate that I educate my kids myself, envy my success as an entrepreneur, condescend to me because I'm a hick Midwesterner with a two year degree, find my love of my country not respectable or even quaint but sick, call my friends in the military terrorists, revere people who think the terrorists in Iraq are freedom fighters, think that we would be putting you all on cattle cars if we'd won last night...etc., etc.

I can love you folks, but I will not be doing anything in concert with you. If you want to find common ground with us, tell your Kos, Huffer and DU buddies to stop treating us, the Christian Faith and the American fighting man as stains on the cosmos.

[Mr. Silverback]

What made my day difficult was to look into the eyes of one of my colleagues who has a son who is an intelligence officer in Iraq.

Last night I asked what I'm supposed to tell my son who wants to go to the air Force Academy. The only answer I got was from a Vietnam vet who got baggies full of feces thrown at him when he came home from the war.

I still don't know what I'm going to tell him the next time he talks about going to Colorado Springs and being a fighter pilot.

[Mr. Silverback]

What made my day difficult was to look into the eyes of one of my colleagues who has a son who is an intelligence officer in Iraq.

I want to reach out to reasonable Dems, but there's a problem and it's in your own tag:

When a soldier dies, a protester gloats, a family cries, an Iraqi votes

You know, the problem is that people like Joshua expect to lie down with the dogs who hate--not fail to properly respect, but HATE--our nation and the volunteers who defend it. Then he expects to come over here and have us praise him for bringing us fleas.

Sorry, but the netroots say my friends, my nephew and my president are all terrorists. they say I am the biggest threat to democracy that has ever existed because I serve Christ. I do question Joshua's patriotism, in the same way I'd question the ptriotism of a Freeper who expected us all to get along with a bunch of neo-nazis for the good of the country.

[Mr. Silverback]

How are you and the folks at DoD doing today?

[Mr. Silverback]

Don't worry. It will all happen in the new Heaven and the new Earth. (Revelation Chapter 21)

Ninetynine percent of DUers and a hefty percentage of Huffers and Kommies will be in Hell. They hate Christinatiy like Joan Crawford hated wire hangers.

[Mr. Silverback]

The last decent Democrat was Grover Cleveland, in my opinion.

Respectfully disagree. Truman. But Cleveland was one of the greats...if our current president had his view of the Constitution we might not have had our butts handed to us last night.

[Mr. Silverback]

Shhhh!!! Don't tell them, they might hide!

[Mike Darancette]

Republicans don't need ideas since they are not in charge any more.

[Democracy In Iraq]

How about you just go over to DU and sing Kumbyah with them and get off FR? That would make you and the rest of us here very happy.

Well, for one thing, I don't sing all that well, so I'm not sure how that helps anyone.

And for another thing, I don't think "the rest of us here" would be better off having committed advocates of American values and tradition like me bolt to the other side. We need tempered people like me just as we need fire-brands like you.

One thing we could all use is common respect for those who share our love for this country, and to explore common ground where we can. I agree that there are people on the other side who truly hate this country and wish the worst for us; but like any group of people who hold their views passionately, you'll find a good number of screwballs among many more who are reasonable and mature, and worth exchanging views with even if there is otherwise very little compatibility.

FR is no different in that respect. Picture yourself as a fence-sitter who happens along FR and finds this thread in particular: some Democrat posts a message of conciliation and a willingness to listen as well as to share his views, and we figuratively beat him senseless.

Joshua's words and the gesture of posting here the way he did don't strike me as the work of a freedom-hating terrorist, but as an American who genuinely wants to find common ground and work in areas of agreement to keep to this country great.

Finally, here are the words of the first Republican President, who understood the difference between actual foreign enemies and disaffected political adversaries who themselves believed that they were the true defenders of American institutions:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

[Arrowhead1952]

Which one of these two are you?

L

[ilovew]

I am doing better than I was yesterday. As for everyone else, I don't really know. I wasn't here yesterday and no one's really said anything to me about it so far.