Un****ing the Donkey ( Rick Perlstein Says Free Republic More Crucial than Heritage Foundation)

The Village Voice ^ | Thursday, July 28, 2005 | Rick Perlstein

[aculeus]

Let me know if you want to be on my Marching Orders ping list.

Be warned: failure to follow orders leads to lifetime banning.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

What gets me about Mr. Perlstein is that he refuses to give even the most terse reply to a single one of my comments.

Not one response...ever!

Over the years I've been able to maintain a cordial correspondence-via the Internet-with writers of divergent viewpoints, everyone from noted Israeli conservative pundit and scholar Steven Plaut, to the author of the "Chatterbox" column in Slate, to even that egotistical, H.L. Mencken wannabe who pens a regular column for the Newark Star-Ledger.

However, for some undisclosed reason he doesn't see fit to communicate with another member of the same website.

Go figure.

[XenaLee]

Simple answers from simpletons. Yep. That's the Dems allright!

[XenaLee]

I'd volunteer to be on it, but I'm aleady on so many other Free Republic Marching Orders lists....I just don't think I can handle one more. Anybody got a good time management class they could recommend?

[Dad yer funny]

another GREAT post from the likes of you[LOL!!] thanks MI

[proud American in Canada]

If you thought health care was expensive now, just wait until it's "free." -P.J. O'Rourke

LOL! No kidding... he's got that right.

OTOH, spending a good ten hours in a hospital emergency room with a four year-old daughter with an ear infection.... well I'll call that "quality time." ;)

Quality time, plus plenty of quantity time. :)

thanks for the ping, Shapka. Or, should I say, do not dub me Shapka.

Etc. :) Have a good weekend, Not SB. :)

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

You too!

:)

-good times, G.J.P. (Jr.)

[rwa265]

Is Rick the Village idiot?

[Perlstein]

Sorry, dndmsb, I just saw the thread. Glad to chat with you now, here or privately. I maintain cordial correspondence with several conservatives; one of them, in fact, put this thread up.

Perhaps we can start the discussion with this. Many people were offended with my suggestion that FR bans dissidents. My last time participating in a Free Republic thread I wrote a FReepmail to a poster congratulating him for his independent-mindedness in suggesting that Rove might be guilty. He wrote me back reticently, and then said this: "I am usually a little reticent on FReepmail, ever since I learned that it could be monitored by TPTB."

FReepers are nervous about getting their mail judged by the owners of the site, it seems.

Where does this paranoia come from? Is it entirely unfounded?

[Perlstein]

Actually, I made a mistake above. An old FReep pal of mine didn't post this thread, he just alerted me to its existence.

[grey_whiskers]

Please refer to your handout. The first column records some typical things "Freepers" say. The second records what the same Freeper said after the Senate voted cloture on the president's bankruptcy bill. Column A: "We are going to see a day, in our lifetimes, when schools force children to engage in homosexual acts as 'projects' or 'homework' for sex-ed." Same guy, column B: "The newly amended bankruptcy law is a criminal act perpetrated, bought and paid for by commercial pirates masquerading as legitimate businesses."

Anti-Democrat Sarcasm Torpedo ARMED. FIRE!!

And after this, he thinks he can accuse US of using 'marching orders', with a straight face?

What

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

It's not entirely unjustified, I suppose.

I can't say that I necessarily have any misgivings about the concept of a closed forum.

In other words, a website such as DU or FreeRepublic, which makes it explicitly clear beforehand that the forum that has been established is intended for the specific purpose of promulgating a clearly delineated point of view, and that anyone who might not concur with that perspective-for whatever reason-should look to other online venues in order to exercise their freedom of expression.

The problem-as I see it-arises when those rather nebulous parameters, be it the fact that you are a conservative traditionalist or a progressive/liberal, or more narrowly defined, a registered Republican or Democrat, are restricted to the point where exclusive membership becomes contingent upon a wholly arbitrary decision, the criteria left open to the judgment of certain moderators who each have their own peculiar dispositions and pre-existing prejudices.

Then again, whether or not I agree or disagree with a given decision is really immaterial, since I'm not the one defraying the majority of costs associated with operating one of these ambitious projects, or carrying the attendant legal obligations and responsibilities.

[middie]

Huh??

[middie]

What in the wide, wide world of sports is this clap-trap all about???

[SunkenCiv]

Well put (as usual). :')

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

Thanks for the compliment!

:)

[Tribune7]

"Government can help provide us with the basic tools we need to live out the American dream."

Very true. Government can also destroy your life just for trying to make a living. Conservatives recognize both these aspects of reality while Dems embrace the former as a religion while condemning those who point out the latter as heritics.

Further, Dems also refuse to recognize that much of government is only meant to help those who are in government. Yes, Virginia. There is a Boss Tweed (who was a Dem)

Please refer to your handout. The first column records some typical things "Freepers" say. The second records what the same Freeper said after the Senate voted cloture on the president's bankruptcy bill. Column A: "We are going to see a day, in our lifetimes, when schools force children to engage in homosexual acts as 'projects' or 'homework' for sex-ed." Same guy, column B: "The newly amended bankrup

So if the bankruptcy bill is so important to you Rick, why not just concede the homosexuality issue to the conservatives, hmmmm? Hubert Humphrey or JFK or FDR or Harry Truman would have. Why not you? Could it be that those who run the party feel that embracing homosexuality as a virtue is more important than the fiscal stuff?

[snarks_when_bored]

Perhaps we can start the discussion with this. Many people were offended with my suggestion that FR bans dissidents. My last time participating in a Free Republic thread I wrote a FReepmail to a poster congratulating him for his independent-mindedness in suggesting that Rove might be guilty. He wrote me back reticently, and then said this: "I am usually a little reticent on FReepmail, ever since I learned that it could be monitored by TPTB."

Two comments, Mr. Perlstein:

• Anybody who thinks that something they post to the Web is accessible only to its intended recipient is too naïve to be using the Web.

• Would you congratulate a poster on DU for his independent-mindedness in suggesting that Rove might not be guilty? And, perhaps more pertinently, would you post a message on DU detailing possible reasons for believing that Rove might not be guilty? After all, it's not as if left-leaning folks don't try to enforce their own orthodoxies. Ask Tammy Bruce about that, for instance.

[section9]

Here's Rick's problem.

Rick believes that the interest of the Democratic Party supercedes the interest of the United States as a whole. He won't admit that, but that's the truth. He might come on here and lie and say otherwise, but that's the case.

What the Democrats did with Social Security, for instance, is simply refuse to address a mounting problem. They have, literally, no answer. Yes, kristinn, SS is a huge Ponzi scheme, which must come tumbling down someday.

What Rick refuses to realize is that you can't beat something with nothing. The Republicans have the ideological initiative because they are the ones putting forward the policy ideas. What's Rick's solution?

National Health Care.

Why?

Not because it would lead to efficient distribution of goods and services in the health care industry: it doesn't. 60 years after Clement Atlee introduced NHS into Great Britain they're still having debates about nursing shortages and Wait Times in Parliament. I won't start about wait times for critical surgery in Canada.

Democratic Socialists desire NHS in the United States not because it would help Americans but rather because it would help the Democratic Party. That subtext runs throughout Rick's entire article. What Perlstein didn't get from Kristol's memo is what Kristol actually perceived the Clinton's to be doing: purchasing votes with taxpayer money. The Clintons were NEVER after the efficient distribution of health care. They wanted to set up an NHS system as a huge patronage scheme for the Democratic Party.

Rick is simply not intellectually honest enough with himself, and his audience, to recognize a patronage scam when he sees one. He's too blinded by partisanship. He will always put the interest of the Democratic Party before the country, and will rationalize it by concluding that what's good for the Democratic Party is good for America. Conversely, what's good for Chimpy McBushhitler must be bad for America.

It doesn't appear that he supports our effort in Iraq, either. But that's another debate. It is in our interest that the Democrats morph into a pacifist party during this war. The more Pacifist they are, the longer we will hold the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. It appears that Hillary has underestimated the Sturmabteilungen quotient in the Democratic Party's activist base. This is all to the good. We shall be out of Iraq within two years, and they will have shot their wad at having become the Michael Moore party.

Nixon won an astounding reelection victory in 1972 after having taken 20,000 KIA between 1969 and 1971. We are in a far better strategic position worldwide that Nixon was in at this same point in the war, and the Democrats come across as the party that has lost its nerve.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Tribune7]

So you're a Freeper too? In case you missed it:

Government can help provide us with the basic tools we need to live out the American dream."

Very true. Government can also destroy your life just for trying to make a living. Conservatives recognize both these aspects of reality while Dems embrace the former as a religion while condemning those who point out the latter as heritics.

Further, Dems also refuse to recognize that much of government is only meant to help those who are in government. Yes, Virginia. There is a Boss Tweed (who was a Dem)

Please refer to your handout. The first column records some typical things "Freepers" say. The second records what the same Freeper said after the Senate voted cloture on the president's bankruptcy bill. Column A: "We are going to see a day, in our lifetimes, when schools force children to engage in homosexual acts as 'projects' or 'homework' for sex-ed." Same guy, column B: "The newly amended bankrup

So if the bankruptcy bill is so important to you Rick, why not just concede the homosexuality issue to the conservatives, hmmmm? Hubert Humphrey or JFK or FDR or Harry Truman would have. Why not you? Could it be that those who run the party feel that embracing homosexuality as a virtue is more important than the fiscal stuff?

But understand something, Rick. We, unlike most Dems, can pick up the B.S. You and the Dems are limo libs interested in what's good for you, not what's good for those whom you claim to represent.