Reply #129: a few points ... [View All]

first, although we may disagree on many of the points you raised, i think it would be tragic if the DU community became so regimented that diversity was no longer tolerated and respected ... and the views you expressed seem like solid progressive views to me ...

i think we do our causes a major disservice when we try to measure "liberalness" along a continuum ... it reduces what should be an American issue to a partisan issue and weakens our case and the magnitude of our support ...

for example, are you "liberal" if you think there's too much money in the political process? ... do right-wingers who genuinely believe in the Constitution and the institutions of government and the American electoral system really want a government of special interests? i don't believe they do ... instead of framing this as a left-right battle, we should be framing it as a "let's restore and reform our democracy" issue ... the labels really hurt the cause ... they divide us and let big monied interests maintain their dominance ...

you also said gun control should be left to the states ... fwiw, i strongly disagree ... it's important to understand that states that make it very easy to obtain guns make it close to impossible for more restrictive states to enforce their laws ... i vaguely remember some statistic from years ago that said something like 90% of the guns used in gun crimes in NY State were sold in Virginia ... my memory isn't so good; perhaps the data is wrong ... but the point is that one state's policy clearly impacts other states ... state's rights arguments are good in that they allow for local autonomy; they're bad because they often impose the preferences of one state on its neighbors ...

and finally, you wrote "I don't think America is responsible for all the evils on the face of this planet" ... i don't either ... the "left" is often tagged with this mistaken, anti-American bias ... frankly, it is often the left that raises issues of human rights concerns around the world ... while pro-business types want "free trade", "the left" often wants trade conditioned on whether we condone other countries' human right policies ... also, it's important to understand that US foreign policy has been highly abusive of many weaker nations ... we have assassinated; we have "toppled"; we have exploited foreign resources and foreign labor and we have had an imperialistic foreign policy for more than a hundred years ... as the most powerful nation in history, we are certainly not the only evil-doers on the planet but we are perhaps ultimately the most damaging ...

finally, while i also see the MSM as first and foremost "corporate", i think the real risk is not specifically "republican control of the media" but rather the dangerous centralizing of the media that has continued under both Democratic and republican administrations ... the risk to our democracy is first and foremost the corruption of big money and the power and abuse it enables ...

anyway, i salute your independent voice on DU ... i wouldn't worry at all about measuring up to the official DU mindset ... if we all thought exactly the same thing, there wouldn't be a whole lot of point to exchanging and debating our views ...