On European talkboards that’s probably because the media is distorted in BHO’s favour. Sometimes the damage is done not by what’s said by either the the Left or the Right, but by what’s NOT said.
A specific example of this is the the convention of referring to the President Elect with his full name - Barack Hussein Obama.
This tactic doesn’t sit comfortably with Brits - not because they’re fans of Obama, it’s because they simply don’t subscribe to the notion that middle names are politically significant. They prefer to fight elections on the basis of values and policies, and in their book personal attacks don’t count.
In fact, they would view drawing attention to it to be a sign of monumental political weakness and moral cowardice on the part of the person making an issue out of it.
It’s a MAJOR cultural difference.
Nobody on the American Right has ever really explained to the Brits, in terms that they can understand, why his middle name is at all relevant to the debate. And believe me, they’ve had plenty of opportunities in the British media to do it. So the average Brit presumes it’s not really relevant.
The average Brit has plenty of “information” from the Left - for example, that the Bin Laden family (Osama excluded) are Westernised and welcome in America despite the connotations of their names. So that further increases their suspicion of the motives of the Right in bringing this up.
So on one hand you’ve got the Left pointing out something which on the face of it sends a positive message to the Brits about America in that it doesn’t judge people by virtue of their names, and on the other hand you’ve got the American Right apparently insinuating that anyone with the word Hussein in their name must be a mad mullah.
To a Freeper, the latter message is more appealing. Even to a right wing Brit, that message violates a deep-rooted cultural instinct of fair play.
American left wing comedians touring in the UK have made fortunes out of exploiting this fundamental lack of understanding on the part of the American Right.
“I live by a moral code that they do not accept.”
Well, you don’t accept theirs either. Be fair!
“Lacking a moral code allows them to make their own as they go along.”
Maybe you think that because liberals come in so many different flavours?
Liberalism is about the state serving the people. The opposite of liberalism is authoritarianism - where the people serve the state.
You can’t get a bigger distinction than that. That’s why the very idea that commies and liberals should even be discussed in the same sentence, is bonkers.
You have economic liberals (advocates of the free market, small government, privatisation, deregulation, trickle-down wealth creation and charities instead of the welfare state, community-led society). Sound familiar? Course it does, it’s conservatism.
Then there are social liberals (high tax, wealth distribution through taxation, universal healthcare, nationalised industries, regulation).
Both are pro-freedom.
Margaret Thatcher was an economic liberal through and through. Tony Blair is a social liberal.
The most authoritarian thing that’s happened in Britain, the biggest threat to British Freedom, is not a handful of Moslem nutters on an ego trip. We had thirty years of the IRA and didn’t tear up our freedoms.
The biggest threats to British freedom is the Surveillance Society - one CCTV camera for every 8 people, speed cameras, political correctness, bans on political protest outside the Houses of Parliament, citizenship tests, people being kicked out of their jobs for being members of a legitimate political party called the BNP.
Why do you think British liberals are anti-war? Because they suspected the Blair government was going to use the War on Terror as an excuse to tear up freedoms that we’ve had since the 13th Century. Turns out they were absolutely right.
Conservatives in America are tooling up to protect their Constitution but you’ve been cheering Blair on as he’s torn the British one to shreds for TEN YEARS.
You dismissed the people who stood against him and warned you that this was coming, as moral liberal cowards.
Oddly enough, the boot’s now on the other foot, and suddenly the people defending AMERICAN freedom aren’t “liberals”, they’re “PATRIOTS”.
That’s irony.