Posted on 12/01/2004 8:26:31 AM PST by Jose Roberto
Various dictionaries describe liberals as open minded, generous, progressive, leaning toward individual freedom, broadminded and ahead of the times.
Those interpretations of the word "liberal" seem to add up to a compassionate person. This president who calls himself a "compassionate conservative" surely cannot object to the label.
Unfortunately, the American people have yet to see the "compassionate" part of Bush equation. When a president wipes out overtime for millions of workers, restricts enforcement of health and safety regulations for workers, limits the union bargaining rights of government workers in Homeland Security and freezes their salaries, blocks the government from negotiating less expensive drugs from drug companies under Medicare, and gives huge tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers, can you really call him "compassionate"?
Maybe, for the rich.
Born into wealth and privilege, living the good life until he settled down at the age of 40, there was no time for Bush to develop a social conscience. So it's understandable how he would not show much compassion for the poor, the jobless and minorities.
He has chipped away at government social programs, putting them in competition with private religious charities for funding. Through vouchers, he is promoting private schools over public schools.
And he is seeking to weaken Social Security by privatizing a portion of the program.
Bush also has attacked Kerry for choosing a trial lawyer, Sen. John Edwards, as his running mate. Edwards has amassed a fortune through his success in winning malpractice verdicts for clients injured through the negligence of others.
Liberals know all about compassion. What's more, they practice what they preach, which is more than the president can say.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebostonchannel.com ...
And the same point can be made about anyone who says that abortions should be rare, or that they wouldn't personally have one, but that others should have the "right to choose".
If it's OK, why not have a lot of them? Why should they be rare?
Definition of "Coyote Ugly": If you woke up next to her in a cheap motel and your arm was under her shoulder, you would chew it off in order to get out of there without waking her up.
I thought she finally had lost her credentials? I don't remember seeing her anymore at any press conferences. Or maybe she's just slumped over in her chair, passed out from drinking all of the gin.
I saw a graph of average charitable donations (as a percentage of AGI) plotted against the vote margin of each state in the presidential election. There was a statistically valid relationship in this data - the states that leaned heavy towards Kerry were tight in their giving. The heavy pro-Bush states were more generous. Swing states were in the middle.
Yup, this nasty thing is representative of the libs compassion allright. She of the quote, "She's a monster, monster! This woman is a G**damn liar!" (regarding Condi) There's some good ole' lib compassion for ya!
I refuse to take seriously a mooing liberal cow with matching udders fore and aft
stupid ignoratn people like this should really be sent back to school of commen sense. I wish she would just go away. She makes me so angry! her and all these liverals ywho can't do anythign but vry and complain about how they are vitimized and spread lies abotu our President. Helen Thomas should be exported for treason!
Here ya bro...
One glimpse of the lovely Helen Thomas, and I'm walking in sunshine......now where are my #@&!* meds again??
It's a fair question - what's wrong with being liberal? This is a large country, and there's plenty of room for opposing viewpoints. In fact, I'd argue that mulitple views and reasoned discussion make for better all-around policy.
However, Helen Thomas stating "George Bush is a rich idiot" is not reasoned debate, nor is it a liberal mindset. In fact, it's a closed mindset, resistant to any questioning.
Where to even begin with such a stupid article.
The denotative meaning of liberal is irrelevant to the political meanig of the word. "Liberal" as compassionate? "Liberal" as generous?
How bout lets just stick to politcs and say liberal as socialist. Frankly I tend to think that liberals have given themselves the label so as to mask their true underlying motives that have nothing to do with being generous and compassionate.
Before Helen lays claim to such characteristics and goes around criticizing Bush for lacking them...lets look at the basics. How much money did Helen Thomas give to charity as a portion of her income in say 1998...I know Bush gave a significant amount..I would have to dig up the numbers but Bush's tax returns show a pattern of consistent cheritable giving...ironically the "liberal" candidate's tax returns were suspiciously lacking in that regard...also on a consistent basis.
It would be interesting to see Helens and I acknowledge that this is pure conjecture but I wouldbe willing to be she doesnt give much. In a sense there is even proof of this in her article...She criticizes Bush for undermining government welfare programs in favor of faith based programs. This would seem to intimate that Helen does not believ in private charities but relies on teh government to provide for people. In light of the fact that there is almost no viable argument that government is better at charitable assitence than private charities are one would almost have to ask Helen just where does her ompassion lie..for the government or for the people that they are teoretically trying to assits. Since private institutions do a much better job..if actually helping people were her priority then you woudl think she would be supportive of such a notion.
The same argument can be applied to our education system. In light of the fact that private education institutions CONSISTENTLY outpreform public institutions you would think that if the goal was to actually educate people than she would be in favor of programs that provide opportunities to underprivilaged so that they might gain access to better education options.
Just where is the forward, compassionate, generous thinking in wanting to continue with social security system that is going bankrupt, provide no real social support mechanism, and is liitle more than a back door tax on income ratehr than trying to reform the system into somethign that coudl actually realize a legitimate return toward peoples retirements.
This is the problem with liberals. They like to sit around talking about how progressive they are even though their "prgressive" ideas never seem to work. They like to say how generous are, even though when you look at their tax returns they dont seem to be any more giving then others and frequently are less so. They like to say how they are for the underprivilaged even though they are opposed to any program that actually gets them off of government assistance and moving forward with a more productive rewarding life. In short liberals love to talk about how great they are even though their record fundamentally stinks.
For my part I would prefer for them to put their money where their mouth is instead of their mouth where their mouth is. Until then all of their platitudes are meaningless and I will continue to call use liberal in the political sense.
One more example of "the rage of the drowning."
All very well - but people who buy ink by the barrel don't think they have to restrict themselves to merely the dictionary definitions of words. Thus, as Lewis Carol put it, "When I use a word it means what I want it to mean, and neither more nor less!"Leftists advocate tyranny.
Tyranny is simply, to coin a word, "governmentism" - the idea that the government is or should be the font of all good things.But "tyranny" or "governmentism" is in bad odor; leftists needed a better brand for what they were selling. Leftists seized on the expedient of distorting the meaning of "society" so that in their usage, "society" means nothing other than "government." Thus, the word "socialism" is intended to sound warm and fuzzy on the one hand - but actually to mean "governmentism" - tyranny - in actual practice. Outside the USA this bit of legedermain was remarkably successful. But here in the US the vibrant free market actually deliviered what the leftists promised - social control of production and distribution which delivers amenities to us at such a prodigiously accelerating rate that an American secretary today would have to think long and hard about giving up everything run by electricity or gasoline, everything made of plastic, and modern drugs and surgery for all the fabulous wealth of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).
Here in the United States, the term "socialism" wasn't warm and fuzzy enough to blind people to the tyranical reality of the leftist project. So the leftists needed to rebrand their ideas - and having control of the big-time media, motive met opportunity. They began calling themselves "liberals" because that word meant what Americans actually stood for. The result is that the word "liberal" - dictionary definition notwithstanding - is understood in America, if not internationally, as a synonym for tyranny.
Hasn't she joined the fossil record yet?
Kool-aid Queen Alert
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