It is ME that is bitter about some little thing? I have read your endless litanies on this website, and it seems to me that you are so filled with hate that you cannot see past your own rhetoric. How about this little gem from you: “Liberals need a place to hide from the real world because what you [Republicans] have going on out there is frightening indeed.” That is indeed sick.

I wonder if it has dawned on you how perfectly your phraseology, style, and presentation match the author of this little vapid piece. I mean really, you could have wrote it. That is the thing that is so apparent about you leftists, you march in lock-step with each other, repeating slogans to each other, and agreeing with each other about what amounts to patent nonsense.

The when a conservative posts an article here, leftists pop out of the woodwork and shout some more slogans, as if your little bumper sticker phrases are self evidently true. “Bush is a liar, he’s helping out his oil buddies, the Republicans are going to starve the elderly, homopobes, bigots, Halliburton, Carl Rove…”

See, I can do it and sound just like you. It isn’t hard. It requires no thought, no analysis, no logic. I have asked you so many times to cite examples, to document your assertions, to name even one source that proves any of your endless parade of accusations, but you yet to do so.

Ok, continue to hide from the real world, if that is what you want. The rest of us who love life, who will fight for liberty, who recognize that there are evil people in the world who must be stopped, we will still go about our daily lives with joy, pursuing our private, legal, community-benefitting interests, while refusing to bow down to the god of government.

Even more sad, is her unquestioning endorsement of the communist supported “World Can’t Wait” protests. If she wants to oust a “real” despot, perhaps she should try protesting on the streets of Pyongyang, Havana, Beijing or even Tehran — she certainly would learn the meaning of tyranny then.

For a teacher, it is also sad that she doesn’t seem to understand what “despot” means: “a ruler with absolute power, especially one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way.” (Compact Oxford English Dictionary) Of course, the current Bush admnistration could never fit that definition. Bush does not have absolute power (memo to Ms. Clemons: Congress still holds the purse and the Judiciary has the final word on the Constitution (which, btw, contains no express guarantee of a right of “privacy” as such)). As the plethora of Bush hate-speech floods the internet, press, and entertainment worlds proves, there is certainly no “oppression,” either. At least, in these United States, people are still free to think as they please, and to speak their minds (memo to Ms. Clemons: compare this vitality with, say, how fringe thinkers are treated in Iran or China). Ms. Clemons also fails to explain how the Bush administration has been “cruel.” I suppose that is a somewhat subjective evaluation to make, but I’d willingly compare any “atrocity” she cares to cite against, say, the current regime in China, where they now apparently have mobile executioner buses to bring justice right to your doorstep. I’d even willingly compare the U.S. treatment of its underclass with the underclasses living in French slums.

Do I think everything is perfect? Of course not. Could we be surrendering too many freedoms too cheaply in the name of “security”? Certainly. But I more concerned about what is happening in my own locality, where local officials want to plant cameras almost everywhere. None of this has to do with Bush, of course, but to me, that is more dangerous to personal “privacy” and liberty than whether the NSA listens to certain overseas phone calls.

As Alexander Hamilton observed over a century ago, a permanent tension exists in self-government — “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

The point is that from its inception America has been imperfect. Where America is different though, is that its people have always aspired to create “a more perfect union.”

An ancestor of mine fought and was maimed in the Civil War, a horrific war which preserved the Union and ended slavery. However, in Asia and in many Muslim countries slavery is still commonplace and accepted. By the way, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln stepped outside the bounds of the Constitution in ways that make G. W. Bush’s supposed “despotism” look like a church picnic. Hint: if Bush followed Lincoln’s precedent the entire editorial staff of the New York Times would be in prison.

In the 1960′s the Civil Rights movement in America achieved historic success against institutionalized racism. Now a scant 40 years later, black Americans enjoy legal protections and wide-spread preferential treatment in hiring and promotion not afforded to their former white “oppressors.” Contrast that with China and the 1989 Tianaman Square pro-democracy protests which were literally crushed under the treads of Chinese Army tanks. That, dear Andrea, is real despotism.

Finally, I implore you to look around you. Look at the students in your classroom whose own family roots can be traced to every corner of the earth. Look at the people you pass on the street — black, brown, Asian, Mediterranean. Do you really think they came here to be part of the “evil empire?” To sacrifice themselves to the “white power structure? No, they are here for reasons you are too blinded by your rage and rigid ideology to see. They are here to live in safety, free from persecution and to reap the rewards of their talents and hard work. My paternal great-grandmother came to America through Ellis Island and was a washer woman for the likes of the Rockefellers. My grandfather left school in 6th grade and became a firefighter. My father used the G.I. bill and became a physician. I however, do not possess his science aptitude, and live in more modest circumstances than those I grew up in. That is as it should be. And that is why people climb onto leaky rafts for the off chance of washing up on America’s shores. Ironically, your ancestors became revolutionaries for the same reasons.

Huge surpise. “Those who cannot do, teach”, as they say. Too bad you didn’t become a history teacher, our country’s institutions of education could use you to help re-write global history as it re-happened after the fact.

In all kindness

Pat

This kind of rhetoric is just getting tiring. The author is just throwing out mindless moveon.org talking points without supplying a single supporting fact.

Empty rhetoric that doesn’t even deserve a refutation.