I have to admit, I did not really read this article, but I did peruse the first page of comments. Pretty standard fare these days, with the exception that some of this bunch seem to be a little better educated than your average right-wing keyboard-thumper (although in rereading some, I'm considering withdrawing that statement). Don't get me wrong...there are plenty of left-wing idjits out in the netosphere, too. I will say, though that usually the left-wingers seem to attack substance rather than just hurling the standard epithets at "liberals" like: uneducated, ignorant, stupid, mentally ill, etc.; not to mention using the word "liberal" as a pejorative, much like "leper" or "mother-fucker." (And, in looking over the article, I think what it really means is that conservatives just get wasted more...juuust kidding. I think. ) I think it very telling that conservatives malign progressives almost as much as they do liberals. Think about that for a moment.
I suppose, since I don't fall into their particular definition of "conservative," to them I am a "liberal," with all its nasty connotations. I'm not. I'm not conservative, either, nor moderate.
I think about each issue.
Just to give you an example, I have absolutely no problem at all with drug-testing to get welfare or food stamps, thank you very much. I have no problem with my tax dollars going to help someone who really needs it, but if you're getting my hard-earned money, you won't be spending it on drugs, booze, fast cars, big TVs, or fancy cookware...or cigarettes.
That's a pretty conservative notion.
Contrast it with the fact that I have absolutely no problem with gay marriage. In fact, "gay marriage" is a misnomer as far as I'm concerned. If two people love each other and want to join in a legally sanctioned partnership, I could give a rat's patootie about their sexual orientation. A friend of mine (well, she's married to a friend—both of them are so ultra-conservative they make GW look like a 60s flower child) posted something about liking an FB page "...in defense of marriage."
In defense of marriage? Whaaaat?
So, if I understand this correctly, Sam and Tom get married, you're suddenly going to run off and get a divorce or start sleeping with goats? How does two guys or two women marrying each other really hurt you?* Please explain this to me. I can understand if you really and truly feel homosexuality is wrong (which in and of itself is misguided, because we have scientific proof that almost all gays and lesbians are born that way, for one reason or another; their orientation is not a lifestyle, it's who they are). Fine, don't marry someone of your gender. But, just as in the case of abortion, your beliefs are not someone else's problem—or they shouldn't be.
And therein lies the problem. Conservatives think liberals are all pushy for wanting things like clean air and water, pure food supplies, good education, and healthcare. Things that benefit everyone.* Conservatives seem to think it's okay to push their religion off on you, tell you whom to marry, whom to sleep with, what you can do with your body (particularly if you have the bad luck to have been born female...sucks to be you).
To be fair here, I find some of the idiotic things the far left does to be utterly mind-boggling. Carrying the PC bit to extremes, for instance. Like this little jewel. The NYC Board of Education requested that 50 words be taken out of standardized tests. Words like "dinosaur" and "birthday" and "divorce." I'm not making this up. Most of this was based on not wanting to offend certain faiths. Fortunately, someone got a clue-by-four for their birthday, and the request was withdrawn. I can only imagine the original request was drawn up by some left-wing committee somewhere.
Back to the comments—and by the way, this whole thing broke my personal rule of not reading the comments (reading the comments erodes my faith in the human species), but it was like a train wreck—here are two that epitomize some of what I'm talking about (the second bullet is in reply to the first):
I would love to know where they get these facts, although I suspect they got them the same place many of these people do: Faux News. I'd be willing to bet that, yes, many blacks, uneducated or otherwise, vote Democratic. Why? Not because they want hand-outs—necessarily—but because they know the Democratic Party is much more likely to protect their rights. In almost everything I've read uneducated whites tend to vote conservative, largely because they tend to be closer to Christian fundamentalism, I would think. And some people might add racist, as well, but I won't go that far, simply because I don't like to be characterized as being this, that, and the other simply by how I live or vote. And last time I checked, felons lose their right to vote.
So if I'm to believe these paragons of political knowledge, a person, simply by virtue of being liberal, is a lay-about hippie who only votes for people who would give him or her handouts.
Bull. Shit.
The more I read those two comments, the angrier I get. Either because I identify with some liberal tenets, I'm a lazy lay-about or because I DO work hard for a living, I'm a conservative? How neat and simple. Why bother with going to school, when these folks have it all figured out for us? You know, it's quite okay to disagree with me, I'll honor that, but when you think you know me, categorize me, and can vilify me all because I think women should have control of their own bodies, anyone should be able to marry, your religion has no place in my child's school, or that I think you should prove to me you're not spending my money frivolously, then I draw the line. I'm not evil, ignorant, mentally deranged, or lazy simply because of my ideologies (whether I might or might not be otherwise is for another post).
The thing we lack in today's world is respect. And the internet aids and abets the lack of respect. Instead of sitting down and carefully crafting a letter to an author or the editor, any individual with internet access can just fire off what they're thinking at the time, usually proving their lack of knowledge, spelling, and respect. Back when Johnson and Goldwater were running for president—and of course I was a lot younger—I just don't remember the level of nasty that people rise to today. Laughable as it seems to one of my generation, Goldwater, who was about as conservative as you could get in American politics in his day, wouldn't get his foot in the door of the tight-ass right-wingers club of good ol' boys of today.
I respect your right to disagree with me. I might not understand where you're coming from or how you can read things differently, but I'll shrug and agree to disagree. I probably won't have much respect for you if call me stupid (I'm not), uneducated (I most certainly am not), ignorant (I could probably read more, but if you mean I don't listen slavishly to Faux News, ah, well...you might have a point), or mentally ill (I might be, but it has nothing to do with my politics). I won't have any respect for you at all if you tell me my rights are less than yours simply because of my gender.
And I won't have much respect—or patience—if you come on my blog and rant at me. My place. You go rant at your place.
*I have my own theories about conservatives being married to the bottom line being the real reason they don't want gay marriage or controls that cut into the profit margin.
So how does that explain the fact that 90% of under-educated blacks vote Democratic, as do uneducated whites and felons? The people that make this country work and pay the vast majority of taxes and obey the law vote Republican. Go figure.