Going to war is mean, so we shouldn’t do it. That person is poor and it would be nice to give him money, so the government should do it. Somebody wants to have an abortion, have a gay marriage, or wants to come into the U.S. illegally and it would be mean to say, “no,” so we should let them. I am nice because I care about global warming! Those people want to kill us? But, don’t they know we’re nice? If they did, they would like us! Bill has more toys and money than Harry, so take half of Bill’s toys and money and give it
to Harry.

Now, that’s not to say that conservatives never make emotion based arguments or that emotion based arguments are always wrong. But, when you try to deal with complex, real world issues, using little more than simplistic emotionalism that’s primarily designed to make the people advocating it feel good rather than to deal with problems, it can, and often has had disastrous consequences. Liberals never seem to learn from this. One of the absolute best examples of the disasterous consequences of this emotion-based liberal mindset is Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty,” which did nothing to reduce the poverty rate despite the trillions that were spent; however, it did help drive the illegitimacy rate among black Americans from 22 percent in 1960 to 70% in 2005. Case closed. Court adjourned.

If you say you’re not on the far-left then I’ll take you at your word. As for your response, I agree that many mistakes have been made in the last eight years. However, millions of people don’t see all the “problems” you see.

Blaming what you call “deregulation” on the Bush administration makes for good campaign rhetoric, but it isn’t true. It’s a fact I encourage you to look-up that Republicans tried to put more regulations not less on Fannie and Freddie, but were blocked by Democrats.

You say that you can’t understand how people could “continue to accept” the level of incompetence we’re now allegedly experiencing, but 56,000,000+ people weren’t voting for Bush — they were voting for McCain.

I give the Obama campaign credit for creating the “Bush’s 3rd term” narrative early, and sticking with it. However, we all know that isn’t really true. The campaign is over — It’s okay to admit that. Nobody was a bigger thorn in Bush’s side than John McCain. So voting for John McCain was in no way voting for more of the same.

So I find it incredibly insulting for you to attribute 56,000,000+ votes for McCain as being the result of stupidity or bigotry.

I simply attribute it to a difference of opinion on exactly what kind of change we need.

Finally, I am hoping and praying for a successful Obama presidency. I didn’t vote for him, but he won fair and square — and I will support him as our new president.

-Chris Jones

Wow. Where to begin. First of all, I’ll tell you straight from the source: I’m not of the “far left,” and I’m certainly not a “pinko” (which, from my memory of my childhood, used to stand in for “communist,” no?). And I’m not a “radical.” Using those terms to describe me is simply absurd. Okay. Can we consider that settled?

More importantly, the point of my post (a good portion of which you haven’t included here), isn’t to root for or insist upon uniformity of thought. It’s to wonder how such a large part of the population could accept and continue to support the level of incompetence, fear mongering, divisiveness, and insults to the intelligence and pocketbooks of Americans we’ve had for the past eight years. In fact, some of those thoughts are included in your excerpts. Which parts do you take issue with? Are you arguing that the preparations for and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were handled well? Is that the part that makes me a left-wing lunatic? The fact that I disagree with the government’s newly proclaimed right to spy on its own citizens? The deregulation, to the point of destruction, of our banking system? These aren’t far-left views, Chris. I think if we were to line ourselves up and use a compass, what we’d find is one slightly left of center guy standing next a good distance from someone far to the right. I mean, generally speaking, absolute deregulation and power concentrated in the executive branch are far right positions. So, yes…I’m way to the left of you. But not far left of center.

In any case, putting the two of us aside, my point was, and is, that things weren’t really going very well for a lot of us of late – domestically or internationally – and it was surprising to me that so many wanted to, essentially, continue on a similar course. Or do you think things really have been going well?

Anyway, just thought I’d post a protest to the way you’ve represented me. Anyone who actually knows me and my position on this Earth would laugh to have me represented as anything radical. All the best to you and yours. I hope things improve in your world over the next few years, simply because I’d like things to improve for everyone. But, if they do, I hope you might take an honest look and see whether any of the coming policy changes – which I expect will be anything but “far-left” – contributed to the improvements.

Evan Handler