Political: What about Hillary?

[fogbank]

I'm an outsider so my opinion shouldn't be counted for much, but it seems to me that if the Republicans run McCain on the 2008 ticket, any candidate short of Jesus Christ himself wouldn't be able to get the Democrats into office--he seems tremendously popular with the moderates. But would the Neocons within the Republican party prevent him from getting the nomination?
On the other hand, in 2012 or 2016, Obama looks like a very serious candidate (I just think that 2008 would be too soon). Everything I've seen of the guy (his speech at the Dem convention, some election stump speeches, and his acceptance speech) has been absolutely brilliant, and it sounds like he does a great job about reaching middle-of-the-road voters.

 

[rgraham666]

The neo-marxists (my name for the neo-cons) would keep McCain from the ticket. He's way too moderate for them.

How would they do this?

Question his war record, play up anything that smacks of 'liberalism', whispering campaigns, misquoting things so it sounds like he wants to burn The Bible, etc. ad nauseum.

It's a proven strategy.

 

[sweetnpetite]

How can we turn it around so it looks like the Republicans want to burn the bible?

 

[Boxlicker101]

How odd.

The Christians don't like the liberals for the reasons Colleen stated.

And the Muslims don't like the U.S. for the same reasons.

You act like you are surprised. You shouldn't be. Fundamentalists of any religion are very much alike in matters of dogma. Jesus of Nazareth is seen by Christians as The Messiah while he is honored as a prophet by the Muslims but outside of that, and it is a big difference, the dogma is much the same, especially regarding the place of women. There really aren't very many of either group but they have influence beyond their numbers.

 

[bridgeburner]

A Hillary campaign would piss me off even more than Lieberman's.

The only way a woman, a Jew or a person of color is going to get elected in this country in the next 20 years would be on a Republican ticket and I'll let you figure the odds on that yourselves.

For Hillary to run would be suicide for the Democratic party. We need a southern or southwestern Dem preferably one who's been a governor. Someone who supports the 2nd Amendment in a responsible way --- screw assault rifle afficianados and gun-ban proponents alike --- and someone who's willing to point out "privatization" of Social Security for what it is: abolishment of any meaningful security for seniors who have worked their whole lives trying to prepare for their retirement.

-B

 

[Colleen Thomas]

How can we turn it around so it looks like the Republicans want to burn the bible?

I don't think you need to go that far. If you could ever convince people you respect their religion it would be an accomplishment. Calling them stupid for honoring it isn't the way to go however, which seems to be the major thing liberal coumnists are doing now. Liberal intolerance of anyone who dosen't buy into their idealistic worldview is just as strong and negative as Fundy intolerance of anyone who dosen't buy theirs.

Secular humanist values, simply contradict what are held as basic traditional values in the majority of this country. As long as the Gop can highlight the Democratic social engineering program, those with religion or more traditional values will oppose them.

Like it or not, the rest of the Democratic platform is immaterial as long as the GOP can concentrate on the social agenda. Nothing else really matters. As long as the perceptions the GOP exploited this time remain, you won't carry a state south of the mason dixon line or west of the Mississippi that isn't linked to the west coast or old north west.

-Colly

 

[Weird Harold]

I was asking Colly why the Fundies were so opposed to Hilary.

Part of the answer, but only a part is in the title of her book It Takes A Village to Raise a Child.

To may people, that simple phrase translates to "The Government should tell you how to raise your children" -- and it just isn' the hardcore fundies that take that meaning from Hilary's "message" -- although the book itself is a very thoughtful and rational look at the problems facing our young with some good ideas on how to go about solving some of them.

vella-ms:
the UofS isnt ready to let go of the good ol' boys... not now, not in four years ... dont know when or if itll ever happen. if we could manage to sift through the political candidates for someone with a bit more back bone, some verve, and manage to hold the press accountable for what it feeds the public, then i think we might have a chance with another democratic candidate.

When I first voted in 1970, the thought that a woman would run for VP in a mere fourteen years wasn't even Science Fiction. Womenin Politics were mostly limitd to retired school techers running for the school board.

Today, we're having a serious discussion of whether Hilary is the right candidate in '08.

The Presidency and Vice Presidency are the only Political Offices that women still haven't achieved.

I think it's possible for a woman to be elected President or VP in '08, but just barely and Hilary isn't a woman who has any chance of doing it.

I think a woman could win either position in '12, but the problem of beating an incumbent complicates the issue considerably.

I think it's probable that a woman could be elected President in '16 -- IF the groundwork starts soon to position a moderate woman governer in the national spotlight. (or run a moderate through a Governership in the next 12 years to positionher for a serious run for President.)

The US is a lot readier for the idea and/or reality of a woman president than many people think.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I don't think Hillary will run or could win. As others have said, she's a big time liberal. She will carry the label of wanting to institute socialized healthcare.

America doesn't want an ultra lib for president right now. That may change in the future, but not in the next few years.

I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard the other day that Gore and Kerry are seriously considering running again in 2008.

Let's see....Hillary, Gore, and Kerry all in 2008. Why not throw in Shumer and Kennedy just for the hell of it and you could mail the election in to the Repubs.

John McCain is a good man. I find him to be reasonable on almost all issues. Others are right though, the far right will never allow him to win the nomination. He's much too moderate for them, and they have the power right now.

 

[rgraham666]

You act like you are surprised. You shouldn't be. Fundamentalists of any religion are very much alike in matters of dogma. Jesus of Nazareth is seen by Christians as The Messiah while he is honored as a prophet by the Muslims but outside of that, and it is a big difference, the dogma is much the same, especially regarding the place of women. There really aren't very many of either group but they have influence beyond their numbers.

I'm not surprised.

In fact, I find it rather amusing that an influential part of Islam is opposed to Western culture because it is secular, urban and multicultural rather than faith based, rural and mono-cultural.

And much of the U.S. is against the same thing.

Radical Islam fights Bush for these reasons.

And Radical Christianity supports him for those reasons.

Again, how odd.

 

[BigAndTall]

Personally I think that if the Democrat party wants a canadiate. They should think about a governor.

Mark Warner in Virginia would be a good bet. So might be the governor of Missouir (not sure of his name).

 

[sweetnpetite]

Personally I think that if the Democrat party wants a canadiate. They should think about a governor.

Mark Warner in Virginia would be a good bet.

http://www.issues2000.org/Profile_Mark_Warner.htm

 

[Seattle Zack]

Hillary's numbers are abysmally low among women, especially Democratic women. And women make up a majority of the registered voters in this country. She'll never make a serious run for president. If the Dems do chose her, it will be a disaster that makes Mondale/Ferrarro look like a landslide. I'll never vote for her, that's for sure.

I'm an independent, and I would have voted for McCain over that moron Gore without a second thought in 2000. Bush was an even bigger moron, so I wasted my vote in 2000, since our state was already committed to Gore. McCain is the closest thing to an independent we've had in this country for a long time. I seriously hope he runs in 2008.

 

[Seattle Zack]

One of my favorite authors, Wendy Kaminer, is a social critic who's a senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly and has published about a dozen books. She's an atheist with a great sense of humor who expertly skewers modern feminist dogma, religious forays into social welfare, and the rise of irrationallism in society. Her book Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety is a great read. Here's a a piece she wrote before the Shrew's run for the Senate seat in New York:

From The Nation.com (July 22, 1999)


"Run Hillary Run" buttons are in circulation among Democratic elites, the wealthy, well-meaning men and women who actually seem to enjoy writing four- or five-figure checks to the Democratic National Committee, repeatedly. Slaking the party's thirst for soft money, these serial donors remain inexplicably loyal to the Clinton Administration and unabashedly proud of their association with it.

Many of the donors Hillary Clinton has cultivated and captivated over the past eight years share Clinton's image of herself as another Eleanor Roosevelt, in modern professional form. They are not just willing but eager to finance her crusade for a Senate seat, anticipating a dramatic "win for women." That view of her as a liberal feminist prevails right and left, or rather right and center, rallying opponents as well as supporters.

On the record Hillary looks less like a meaner, tougher Eleanor Roosevelt than a kinder, gentler Giuliani. Both Clinton and Giuliani support the death penalty, the 1996 welfare reform bill and the Administration's putatively tough and essentially racist initiatives on criminal justice--as well as gay rights, reproductive choice and the New York Yankees. Both have little regard for civil liberties, especially free speech. Unleashed, Giuliani might cut out the tongues of people who criticize him. Clinton, I suspect, would commit her critics to re-education camps. She has no apparent concern for freedom of speech on the Internet. The Clinton Administration has championed clearly unconstitutional restrictions on online speech, such as the now-defunct Communications Decency Act and its successor, the Child On Line Protection Act, currently being challenged in federal court.

It is easy to imagine Clinton embarking on an anti-vice crusade. She spouts the subtly repressive principles and platitudes of communitarianism, envisioning a majoritarian society in which collective concerns almost always prevail over individual rights. Remember the politics of meaning, her 1993 call for a collective spiritual renewal, her reminder that we are all "creatures of God"? Hillary has always been something of a virtuecrat, expressly focused on infusing society with the values and presumed virtues of religion. It's true that, unlike Giuliani, she has opposed school voucher programs that divert tax dollars to church schools. But I suspect that opposition reflects concern for the votes of public-school teachers more than a commitment to separating church and state. She has yet to speak out against faith-based social service programs, championed by Al Gore (as well as Republican Senator John Ashcroft), which, like vouchers, channel public money to sectarian institutions providing social services.

Clinton seems likely to sacrifice rights--like freedom from religion--to her notion of social goods. Both she and Giuliani exhibit the sanctimony of people who believe they know what's best for the rest of us--less liberty, more order and values imposed by the state or our neighbors.

Is it wishful thinking to suggest that this is not the face of feminism? After all, in the quest for civil rights, feminists have had to seek the intervention of the state, advocating essential legal restrictions on the economic freedoms of others, notably the freedom to discriminate. And, the campaign against sexual violence has made some feminists mistrust classic liberties, like privacy and free speech, while generating support for repressive criminal laws that deny rights to men accused of abusing women. But feminism has also been a movement for civil liberties that depended on First Amendment rights (as all dissident social movements do) and has sought individual autonomy for women.

When Hillary Clinton advocates policies insuring universal healthcare or expanded daycare and various civil rights laws, she does sound like a feminist (and a liberal), but apart from her qualified commitment to abortion rights (she has supported parental notification laws) or her rhetoric abroad, her feminism, like her liberalism, tends to take the form of statism. She is a statist first and a feminist only half-formed--sympathetic to women's demands for civil rights but often indifferent if not hostile to liberty. Clinton, for example, supports laws that restrict the freedom to divorce.

Maternalism wedded to political ambition can be ruthless. Consider Clinton's tacit support for the repressive juvenile justice bill proposed by the Senate in June. It was the vehicle for a few modest restrictions on gun and ammunition sales, passed with enthusiastic Administration support by Al Gore's dramatic tiebreaking vote. When Clinton joined her husband (and most Senate Democrats) in celebrating new initiatives to protect kids from guns, she was in effect urging passage of a law that encourages states to prosecute 14-year-olds as adults, loosens restrictions on housing juveniles with adult offenders, relieves states of the obligation to address racial disparities in juvenile justice systems, federalizes more juvenile crime and imposes harsh mandatory sentences on children. Rudy Giuliani himself couldn't have drafted a bill less protective of children.

Laws like this do not represent wins for women (NOW, to its credit, opposes the juvenile justice bill). Democrats who still harbor old-fashioned liberal feminist sympathies ought to acknowledge that they have found no champion in Hillary Clinton, although in the end, some may feel forced to vote for her. It's too bad they won't have had the chance to vote against her in a primary. In this era of nomination by anointment, politics matters much less than celebrity.

 

[thebullet]

on the working assumption Bush dosen't do something cataclysmically stupid in his second term.

Bush is cataclysmically stupid from the get-go. Whoever won this election was destined to be burdened with the albatross of Iraq. Has Bush done anything to date that makes you think he will get himself out of the Iraqi dilemma?

Bush is operating under the assumption that he has a mandate to change the Constitution and generally destroy all the progress that has been made since the Hoover administration. That mandate, of course, is evidenced by the fact that more people voted against him than any incumbent in American history.

Of course, he thought he had a mandate four years ago when he became a minority president. I don’t think he understands what the word ‘mandate’ means.

The American people will be so fucking sick of the neo-cons by the year 2008 that they won’t have a chance of being reelected unless we have a convenient terrorist attack or there are even more audit-less voting machines installed.

I feel confident that in a fair election (something that may be impossible), the neo-cons will be thrown out with the dishwater.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Bush is cataclysmically stupid from the get-go. Whoever won this election was destined to be burdened with the albatross of Iraq. Has Bush done anything to date that makes you think he will get himself out of the Iraqi dilemma?

Bush is operating under the assumption that he has a mandate to change the Constitution and generally destroy all the progress that has been made since the Hoover administration. That mandate, of course, is evidenced by the fact that more people voted against him than any incumbent in American history.

Of course, he thought he had a mandate four years ago when he became a minority president. I don’t think he understands what the word ‘mandate’ means.

The American people will be so fucking sick of the neo-cons by the year 2008 that they won’t have a chance of being reelected unless we have a convenient terrorist attack or there are even more audit-less voting machines installed.

I feel confident that in a fair election (something that may be impossible), the neo-cons will be thrown out with the dishwater.

LOL.

 

[fifty5]

-B

Hey, Bridge, Welcome back.

Where've you been?



Eff

 

[shereads]

The threat to their way of life is very real to them. As long as liberals continue to push their social values as part and parcel of their politics, these people will ignore the rest of it. The ideals liberals hold on how society should be are the stuff of nightmare for these folks.

This brings us to the part that puzzles me: I heard an evangelical minister on NPR defending the gay marriage ban by saying, "It's because Christians are tired of liberals trying to impose their values on us." How is it possible to impose gay marriage on anyone?

On left/right issues that come to mind, liberals have long been in the position of trying to stop moral judgements from being made into law, and defending the laws that exist to protect privacy and civil liberties.

Fighting school prayer doesn't stop prayer; it places one place off-limits to prayer so that it is not imposed on children who have no choice but to attend public schools. To impose our values, we'd have to fight prayer in private homes and churches and the countless places where people can pray without imposing their values on others.

Opposing a ban on flag-burning doesn't impose anything except the essence of the 1st amendment. If liberals passed a law that required "voluntary flag-burning" in the public schools, we'd be imposing.

Opposing a gay marriage ban, ditto. To impose gay marriage as a value on evangelical Christians, there would have to be a way to force Christians to send a wedding gift, at the very least.

Defending a woman's right to abortion? On the left, we impose our values on the fetus. At the stage affected by the morning-after pill, we impose our values on a fertilized ovum so new it hasn't attached to the uterine wall. On the right, there is a fervent desire to deny women the most basic human freedom: the freedom of our own bodies. At its most extreme, the right believes that stem-cell research imposes liberal values on in-vitro embryos that will be destroyed anyway; in other words, we're imposing our values on a dead embryo.

Whose values are being imposed in Oregon if the right succeeds in overturning the death-with-dignity law? I don't see liberals seeking the right to take that choice away from those who object, but the right isn't a bit shy about imposing six extra months of suffering on someone who can't stand it anymore.

The logic that sees liberals as the aggressor in even a single one of these cases is so twisted, it's a pretzel.

 

[shereads]

Back to topic: Hilary had the poor luck to be in the public eye at about the time my dad needed a place to focus his fear of communism. I watched the transition. It was seamless.

Communists are destroying America!!

Communists aren't a threat anymore.

Someone is destroying America!!

It's that bitch from Radcliffe!

Btw, I've known people who condemn divorce in every case but one: when Hilary didn't divorce Bill. "She's betraying women," one said. "It just proves she has no emotions," said another. "Everybody knows they don't love each other, so why should she divorce him?" And the always-popular, "She's a lesbian. She only married him to cover it up."

 

[rgraham666]

Ya gotta remember shereads, people like their hate and fear. It is, as I've pointed out before, the most common and deadly addiction to mankind.

Also, in spite of the vaunted scientific name we've awarded ourselves, human beings tend to be rationalizing creatures, rather than rational ones.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

This brings us to the part that puzzles me: I heard an evangelical minister on NPR defending the gay marriage ban by saying, "It's because Christians are tired of liberals trying to impose their values on us." How is it possible to impose gay marriage on anyone?

On left/right issues that come to mind, liberals have long been in the position of trying to stop moral judgements from being made into law, and defending the laws that exist to protect privacy and civil liberties.

Fighting school prayer doesn't stop prayer; it places one place off-limits to prayer so that it is not imposed on children who have no choice but to attend public schools. To impose our values, we'd have to fight prayer in private homes and churches and the countless places where people can pray without imposing their values on others.

Opposing a ban on flag-burning doesn't impose anything except the essence of the 1st amendment. If liberals passed a law that required "voluntary flag-burning" in the public schools, we'd be imposing.

Opposing a gay marriage ban, ditto. To impose gay marriage as a value on evangelical Christians, there would have to be a way to force Christians to send a wedding gift, at the very least.

Defending a woman's right to abortion? On the left, we impose our values on the fetus. At the stage affected by the morning-after pill, we impose our values on a fertilized ovum so new it hasn't attached to the uterine wall. On the right, there is a fervent desire to deny women the most basic human freedom: the freedom of our own bodies. At its most extreme, the right believes that stem-cell research imposes liberal values on in-vitro embryos that will be destroyed anyway; in other words, we're imposing our values on a dead embryo.

Whose values are being imposed in Oregon if the right succeeds in overturning the death-with-dignity law? I don't see liberals seeking the right to take that choice away from those who object, but the right isn't a bit shy about imposing six extra months of suffering on someone who can't stand it anymore.

The logic that sees liberals as the aggressor in even a single one of these cases is so twisted, it's a pretzel.

No, you don't see liberals as forcing things on people. And you can't see it, because it requires a shift in perspective you aren't willing to make, not even for the sake of argument. You are right, 100% right, damned right and you are willing to fight over it. So the people who do see it that way will remain a mystery to you and when they turn out your damned right liberal candiates time and again, you will wonder if the world is turned upside down and feel helpless and angry. Now that they control all three branches of government at the federal level they will start passing laws that codifiy what you don't understand and that too will make you feel helpless and angry.

The only thing I can tell you is they are out there, they are the majority and your party has finally pissed them off to the point of boiling and the GOP is reaping the rewards at the polls. And because liberals in general are busy looking for conspiracies and calling those people they don't understand stupid, idiots, evil, ignorant, red necks etc. etc. rather than making an attempt to understand them, I forsee them fixing things so they don't have to worry about ever having to understand your side of it either.

-Colly

 

[Boxlicker101]

ISecular humanist values, simply contradict what are held as basic traditional values in the majority of this country. As long as the Gop can highlight the Democratic social engineering program, those with religion or more traditional values will oppose them.

Like it or not, the rest of the Democratic platform is immaterial as long as the GOP can concentrate on the social agenda. Nothing else really matters. As long as the perceptions the GOP exploited this time remain, you won't carry a state south of the mason dixon line or west of the Mississippi that isn't linked to the west coast or old north west.

-Colly

I have always thought of "secular humanist values" as respecting other peoples' rights and expecting them to respect yours, of following the Golden Rule and of helping where help is needed. This is basically the way I try to live. I don't see how this is in contradiction to anybody's values.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I have always thought of "secular humanist values" as respecting other peoples' rights and expecting them to respect yours, of following the Golden Rule and of helping where help is needed. This is basically the way I try to live. I don't see how this is in contradiction to anybody's values.

Join the bemused and bewildered crowd on the left.

 

[fifty5]

No, you don't see liberals as forcing things on people.

Hi Colly,

You're dead right - the problem is one of understanding. Can you explain in a bit more detail, please?

I can see most of what shereads was getting at - her examples mostly allow different people to do the different things they each want to do - and, as long as neither forces their view upon the other, then I'd have thought that both could be content.

Which brings me full circle - to where I need your explanation: how do rules that allow individual choices, actually apply force?

Please help me to understand that apparent contradiction. I must be missing something.

Presumably, the converse is also true - though again I need help - how is preventing one group from behaving in the way they want, the opposition to "forcing things on people"?

I do see that somethings are simply moral and right - self-evidently. Things like "Thou shalt not kill", or "Love thy brother as thyself" - and the rest of both those sets of commandments (though there have been occasions where I've found it very hard not to covet my neighbour's ass (so to speak) - being content with less than others have is difficult, don't you find? And if getting an ass of one's own doesn't mean taking someone else's then surely that's OK? I mean, surely It's OK to aspire to better things, it's just raw, selfish jealousy that's wrong, isn't it - wanting to take something good away from someone else?) Those commandments seem to me to boil down to giving others the consideration one would want for one's self, don't they? One doesn't want to be killed, so shouldn't kill others. One doesn't want one's own things stolen, so shouldn't steal things belonging to others. One wants to be loved, so should love others. And so on.

Or am I being stupid again?

As above, please do "help my unbelief". I need this stuff explaining, so that I can understand.

Thanks,



Eff

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The fact is thogh, if you think of liberalism as an attitude towards other people, it's almost impossible to think of a liberal idea in the last five hundred years that hasn't been finally accepted and become dogma today.

Fifty years ago the same religious right opposed integration and equality for blacks, and in much the same way: citing scripture and good old American values and complaining about the imposition of the "foreign" liberal idea that their "niggers" were human beings deserving of equal rights.

There were rallies for States Rights, serious talk of amending the constitution, politicians running on the race issue only, and outright defiance of federal law. We tend to forget that there were laws on the books not only against interracial marriage, but against interracial dating or socializing too, and they were supported by a majority of Americans.

A poll of Americans in 1958 found that something like 52% thought integration and equal rights for blacks was wrong. (This is from an article in the Chicago Trib on 11/10 by Eric Zorn.)

Before that the same arguments were used to deny women their rights, and the same with Native Americans, Foreigners, etc. etc. etc. Homosexuals are only the latest group to offend these people.

If catering to the opinions of the American public means abandoning things you know are morally right, then there's no virtue in it: it's just pandering. Elections are popularity contests. Morality and doing what's right aren't.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Hi Colly,

You're dead right - the problem is one of understanding. Can you explain in a bit more detail, please?

I can see most of what shereads was getting at - her examples mostly allow different people to do the different things they each want to do - and, as long as neither forces their view upon the other, then I'd have thought that both could be content.

Which brings me full circle - to where I need your explanation: how do rules that allow individual choices, actually apply force?

Please help me to understand that apparent contradiction. I must be missing something.

Presumably, the converse is also true - though again I need help - how is preventing one group from behaving in the way they want, the opposition to "forcing things on people"?

I do see that somethings are simply moral and right - self-evidently. Things like "Thou shalt not kill", or "Love thy brother as thyself" - and the rest of both those sets of commandments (though there have been occasions where I've found it very hard not to covet my neighbour's ass (so to speak) - being content with less than others have is difficult, don't you find? And if getting an ass of one's own doesn't mean taking someone else's then surely that's OK? I mean, surely It's OK to aspire to better things, it's just raw, selfish jealousy that's wrong, isn't it - wanting to take something good away from someone else?) Those commandments seem to me to boil down to giving others the consideration one would want for one's self, don't they? One doesn't want to be killed, so shouldn't kill others. One doesn't want one's own things stolen, so shouldn't steal things belonging to others. One wants to be loved, so should love others. And so on.

Or am I being stupid again?

As above, please do "help my unbelief". I need this stuff explaining, so that I can understand.

Thanks,



Eff

I can try Eff, although I am walking in territory that isn't all that familiar to me.

I'l start with gay marriage, since it seems to be the one that sent the hordes to the polls.

Marriage has been around for almost 200 years and while it is essentailly a social contract, it has by and large also enjoyed church sanction. In two hundred years no state passed a law saying marriage between people of the same sex was allowed. No federal law was passed that said the same thing. It was a given, that marriage was one man, one woman. Even Utah had to accept that defnition when the territory became a state or soon there after.

5 liberal judges, from the most liberal part of the country sat down and in one ruling, changed the definition that had stood for a couple hundred years. There is nothing in their consittuion that says marrigae isn't between a man and woman, it's different for us here. They didn't just interpret the law, they rewroe the defintion. They didn't ask the opinion of the majority (who disagree in pretty solid mass), they didn't put it up for discussion or allow a vote, they just did it. Due to the reciprocal nature of marriage, this small, ultraliberal state forced gay marriage on 200 odd million americans and they didn't even have a say so in it. Thye forced gay marriage on everyone, even on the folks in my home state where 88% of the elctorate voted to add a defense of marriage amendment to the state constitution.

Is it really difficult to see where people who have severe objections to it feel like it was forced on them by liberals? Afraid to take it to a vote, they went to the liberal courts in a liberal state and enacted it without allowing anyone having a say or a vote in the matter?

If you can stretch your mind to grasp what they are feeling there, it's a pretty deep seated rage at being forced to accept something without even a say so as well as a feeling of being disenfranchised and persecuted by people who want to shove a set of social values down their throats which they could never do if they had to get a vote taken on it. If that person also happens to have a deep religious conviction, it's proof positive liberals want to destroy their religion as well.

Fighting school prayer dosen't stop prayer. Fair enough, but liberals didn't stop at school prayer, they went after under god in the pledge, manger scenes in front of the firehouse at Chrismas, etc. etc. Again, without listening to the will of the majority, using the courts to force it down the throat of a largely unwilling populace.

The liberal mindset is you are ding what's ight. Defending the right of the individual. Making things more fair.

At the same time

To their mindset you are ignoring the will of the majority. Removing their voice by resorting to courts to mandate change rather than interpret the law. And jamming a societal change down their throat which runs counter to their wishes, traditions and in many cases religion.

The liberal activist judge has become to these people what the Stab in the back was to the German populous post World War I. They see their only option to fight this attack by using thier franchise to elect lawmakers and presidents who will put more conservative judges in, write new laws to protect them and stop the destruction of their world by liberals who don't even live there.

If you can't stretch your mind to see whre they feel attacked, none of it makes sense. If you can, then you can see it's an angry, scrared and Dangerous majority, ripe for the picking by Rove & the boys.

-Colly