It's NOT Easy Being Republican
I have no problems with Democrats, but sometimes when I state my opinion some start calling me names, like homophobic, bigot, racist, ignorant, selfish, or other mean insults, because they disagree with me, not to mention they often curse me off too.
Don't you HATE when people taunt or threaten to harm you because they disagree with you?
Like when Miss California said she was against Same-Sex Marriage and the media attacked her!
Or how Keith Olbermann is always bad mouthing Bill O'Reilly, even Bill never said anything about him.
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I'm Nicole Marie Doherty, the creator of Stewart Mango the cartoon show.
www.stewartmango.com
To paraphrase Jon Stewart, losing is supposed to taste like a s**t sandwich. Some republicans screwed up a lot of things, and the party and ideology as a whole is paying the price. I promise you it was a lot more painful for liberals watching Bush butcher foreign policy, domestic policy, economic policy, two wars and the English language for 8 years.
My advice: find something else to concentrate on for the next few years
mikemmlj
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I don't mind that you intelectually disagree with same sex marriage, but I question your motives. I think straight people "get off" on picking on weak little homos like me, your motivation for being against gay rights may be purely intellectual. But you haven't been beat up for being gay, or kicked out of the military for being gay or any thing else.
I didn't choose to be a queer (sexually or mentally!) so I don't understand why you want to limit how many rights I have.
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The Giants and Trolls win, let us die on the right side with Father Odin.
Don't you HATE when people taunt or threaten to harm you because they disagree with you?
Like when Miss California said she was against Same-Sex Marriage and the media attacked her!
Or how Keith Olbermann is always bad mouthing Bill O'Reilly, even Bill never said anything about him.
This is the exact same situation I am facing.
I feel that being Republican and Christian has cost me potential romantic partners based on their generalizations about Republicans and Christians.
I created a thread about my situation:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt97172.html
richardbenson
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On the internet, Stewart, we're outnumbered 20:1 or so. Young, internet savvy types are almost always liberal, so it's easy to feel like the whole world is against you. And sadly, all too many of them believe Republican = Racist, Misogynist, Imperialist Flat-Earth Fundie Christian. I generally just say I'm conservative if asked. That way I can have a conversation before I'm written off as ignorant and uneducated.
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Everything would be better if you were in charge.
If I recall, I belive Dwight Eisenhower was a Republican, but many can agree on the fact that he was relatively moderate compared to mainstream conservatism, which has pulled progressively further to the right for the past 30 or so years. With the advent of the Religious Right in the early 80s, Republicans did find solidarity with it.
But being part of a very tight-knit group requires a collectivist way of thinking, which implies that individual thought is discouraged, as it would apparently compromise solidarity. If the leader of the group follows his/her own convictions blindly and won't accept input from anyone who won't share their beliefs, then you have someone who isn't that far from being labeled a fascist. With mainstream Republicans like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh for example, it's no wonder Republicans in general have such a bad image.
Ask yourself this: exactly why are you Republican? I'm not asking out of ridicule, I really want to know why.
amazon_television
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Yea pretty much it's hard out there these days for any young people who aren't on the Obama hype bandwagon in full force. You have to get into that pack mentality or you're gonna get pissed on.
Hell, I'm not a republican at all--I hold ALL the standard modern socially liberal positions, and I still get heat from the left because I refuse to align myself with the democrats (for various reasons I'm not going to state for fear of offending their fragile psyches) or deem Obama some kind of savior just on blind faith.
amazon_television
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Yea and the thing that a staggering number of liberals fail to grasp is that COULTER HANNITY AND LIMBAUGH ALL ARE JUST ENTERTAINERS. They are EXACTLY the same thing to the right that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to the left.
Of course there are many on the right that think Colbert and Stewart are serious too, I know that, but I (perhaps foolishly) tend to expect a little better from the left.
Yea and the thing that a staggering number of liberals fail to grasp is that COULTER HANNITY AND LIMBAUGH ALL ARE JUST ENTERTAINERS. They are EXACTLY the same thing to the right that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to the left.
Of course there are many on the right that think Colbert and Stewart are serious too, I know that, but I (perhaps foolishly) tend to expect a little better from the left.
Even so, these entertainers are the ones who are selling the image of a socially conservative utopia to the American people, because the American people seem to prefer entertainment to boring politics. That said, the entertainers are the ones the public listens to most of the time.
If that is how they see your views then they are just stating their opinions.
Like when Miss California said she was against Same-Sex Marriage and the media attacked her!
Or how Keith Olbermann is always bad mouthing Bill O'Reilly, even Bill never said anything about him.
If you are supporting policies that have a negative effect on people's lives then sure they are going to be defensive and maybe anrgy towards you.
Politics isn't about hypothetical arguments it is about real people and real lives.
So yes, if you are attacking people they are going to fight back.
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"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.
"How can it not know what it is?"
Politics is a very strong topic out there. When someone doesn't share their same view about something, they feel they have to defend themselves because they feel they have been attacked. People turn into bullies and jerks when it comes to religion and politics but yet are nice people outside those topics. That's why I don't really get involved in them or like discussing it with people.
Last edited by Spokane_Girl on 10 May 2009, 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ichinin
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Oh "Boohoo i am a christian republican an people stay away from me" - Well then maby then you should change your opinion, they do not hate you because you label yourself, they hate you because your side with people who are narrowminded and think that they should be able to determine how people should live their lives.
It is like going back to the 1930's, joining up with the nationalist socialist party and saying "uuh... i like this hitler dude, but i am not an anti-semite".
Maby you do not realise it, but outside USA, you are viewed as a political/religious extremist. You are no better than talibans, nazis or communists.
Yea and the thing that a staggering number of liberals fail to grasp is that COULTER HANNITY AND LIMBAUGH ALL ARE JUST ENTERTAINERS. They are EXACTLY the same thing to the right that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to the left.
Of course there are many on the right that think Colbert and Stewart are serious too, I know that, but I (perhaps foolishly) tend to expect a little better from the left.
Stewart and Colbert were never named "Leader of the Republican Party" or "Leader of the Opposition". They never forced concessions or repetence from politicans who disparingly used their names.
They never penned books calling pro-capital punnishment wives of murder victims "lionized women who love their husbands deaths".
As far as I am aware, they never wrote books which inspired shootings at Fundamentalist Churches.
Both are open and admitted comedians. If you used Dennis Miller, then maybe your analogy would not be a false one.
Needless to say, the asymmetry between your purported leftwing entertainers contrasted with rightwing entertainers is breathtaking.
And why be too sad over this electorally mandated regime change? It’s not like Obama’s going to do anything really profound to end the plutocratic class in America. He’s committed to giving multibillion dollar bailouts to CEOs while tearing up autoworkers benefits. A slight tax increase isn’t really going to hurt these people that much.
Abolishing relics of McCarthyism like “In God We Trust” or theistized “Pledge of Allegiance” are sure to be off the table. A healthcare system in line with the rest of the developed world is off the table. Public exclamations of religiosity, the funnelling of taxpayer dollars to religious organizations, and a de facto acceptance of a religious litimus test for the office of president are unlikely to disappear.
So, in reality, Obama’s presidency and the Democratic triumph should not cause to much discomfort to a republican such as yourself.
amazon_television
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So, in reality, Obama’s presidency and the Democratic triumph should not cause to much discomfort to a republican such as yourself.
Sorry if I'm a bit confused but are you talking about me?
If so, I'm not a republican dude
In fact I said so explicitly earlier in the thread. I voted for Obama, and I am reasonably happy with what he's done so far.
That's actually really funny, you just perfectly illustrated my earlier post, which read:
Hell, I'm not a republican at all--I hold ALL the standard modern socially liberal positions, and I still get heat from the left because I refuse to align myself with the democrats (for various reasons I'm not going to state for fear of offending their fragile psyches) or deem Obama some kind of savior just on blind faith.
And I think you misunderstood when I was talking about Limbaugh, Coulter, etc. (More my fault than yours--I admittedly was not detailed enough, and it came off pretty generalized)
The asymmetry IS breathtaking, however the general/average mentality of your "typical" or stereotyped left-winger vs. right-winger are equally asymmetrical, and these entertainers, on both sides, play to (and are indicative of) their intended audiences. Don't get me wrong--I believe the ones on the right are taken much more seriously and have a greater potential for legitimate political harm. But their functions, relative to their bases, and what these bases want to hear, and how they want to hear it, are (at least in my eyes) identical.