From MSNBC's "Hardball"..."whether you like it or not, we have spoken"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Two entries on the "Hardblogger" Web Site on the role "moraility" played in the election...the first one from the right, the second from the left:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/

1). Character counts— and we just got fed up
Yes, I’m one of those that “time forgot” but now number in the majority… frankly, we always were in the majority, we were just a bit too polite and kind not to go for the throat. After years of the media and particularly the California entertainment contingent pushing some seriously disturbing lifestyles on the world in every form possible – TV, Cable, movies, print of all sort, etc. and insisting that what ever someone does is their own business, we just decided enough was enough. In case you hadn’t noticed, we are educated, we are employed, we are the basic fabric of this country. One more thing, we do NOT wish to move to Canada nor are we using such treats and temper tantrums to try to get our way. What we did, is vote our conscience.

Re: the Baldwins, Streaisand, Penn, Whopie, et al, we really don’t care about them anymore. They enjoy the freedoms that we, the people and the voters protect. While they will call us nasty names and insist that morality is relative, we disagree and right now, whether you like it or not, we have spoken. So take a look at what you truly value and tell me that you don’t believe there is a God; you don’t care about honesty and you believe Big Brother Government is the best path. If that really is your world view… wait awhile and I’m sure you will get what you want. If the much maligned Bible is true, then Armageddon is only a matter of time. If we are all wrong, well, everyone dies and then you can do what ever you like. Of course, if we are right… you are in some deep fertilizer, for a very long, long time… you can’t have it both ways. —Sincerely yours, A former Democratic baby boomer

2). "Moral values"?
While in line at Starbucks late Tuesday morning, a young man whose Walkman was turned up very high stood behind me. As I (a latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, left-leaning Northwest liberal) waited for my coffee, I overheard the stressed-out tones of some rabid right-wing radio host. He was exhorting his listeners to ignore early exit polls showing John Kerry was ahead because “conservatives tend to vote in the evening.” He explained that conservatives are busy in the mornings getting their children off to school and themselves off to work; therefore, liberals dominate the early exit polls. I wanted to laugh out loud! (Of course later I wanted to cry, but that’s a different story.) My husband and I had spent the morning getting our young children through the a.m. routine an hour and a half early so all of us could go to the polling place together, have breakfast afterward, and— it’s shocking, I know— get everybody to school and work on time.

Bush supporters and the media have characterized the election outcome as a victory for “moral values,” as if the Republicans have them and the Democrats don’t. Well, guess what, I have moral values too, and I proudly voted for Kerry. Pundits say now that he should have talked about his religion more, or done better at equating his policies with his belief in God — maybe that’s true, I don’t know. What I do know is that my husband and I get our children off to school and ourselves off to work every single day. We go to mass and send our kids to Catholic school and try to do unto others as we would have others do unto us and believe, firmly, that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own. We believe health care should be affordable for everybody and the death penalty is not respectful of human life and God’s green earth should be stewarded, not raped and pillaged. We do not believe parents should rack up debts for their children to pay, or that unprovoked armed conflict is just. These are moral values, are they not? The Right wing does not have a monopoly on morals. Sadly, only four more years of Bush’s destructive policies will serve to make this clear. —Gigi G., Seattle, WA

[ibegurpard]

1. And whether YOU like it or not

we're not going to sit down and shut up for you.

[npincus]

2. 'moral' values is CODE for 'Christian' values

as in 'born-again Christian'. I don't buy the 'moral' BS. Bush is viewed by these nuts as bringing God into the White House. Of course they can't actually SAY that so they cloak it in more moderate, mainstream language. Don't be fooled. This is what we're up against.

[Tom Kitten]

3. Exactly what the media hoped for

make it an unbridgeable chasm between the "two Americas", play up the differences and stoke up the hot points so there is not even a chance of rational discussion let alone reconciliation...Heated conflict is good for the ratings! I can see the next topic for discussion...."Do liberals even believe in God? And if not what do we do about it?"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. Some interesting little nuances in the battle lines that have been drawn:

1). "you don’t believe there is a God"...utter HORSE SHIT. There are Christians on the left as well as Atheists / Agnostics on the RIGHT.

2). "you don’t care about honesty"...two word to sum up Bush's level of honesty, "National Guard"

3). "you believe Big Brother Government is the best path"...and the Patriot Act falls into which category?

4). "If the much maligned Bible is true, then Armageddon is only a matter of time"...Yes. Those who believe in the Bible and are not fanatics from the far right realize that "Armageddon" could come during or after the second reign of the most high Lord Emperor Bunnypants.

5). "you are in some deep fertilizer, for a very long, long time"...well, at least for the next four years, but this is AMERICA, BITCH. Maybe the "fertilizer" will be equally spread around.

[Blue_Tires]

5. THANK YOU!!

i don't know what fucking planet that "former democrat" lives on...he probably got insanely rich (by his standards) during his autumn years, and decided to stop caring about everything except his bottom line

[Piperay]

12. "Former Democrat" ... that's bullshit

those freaks like to lie and put that there cause they think it gives them some credibility. I'm sure they have always been a repuke and they probably aren't even a babyboomer.

[Tom Kitten]

7. no kidding...

now is the time to think creatively, find new methods of attack and explore all possibilities...I hate to think of the alternative...
And after all Karl Rove can't claim credit for the concept of political deviance.

[LynnTheDem]

6. "All 51% of us so FUCK YOU, YOU 49%!"

And I hope when their cowardly little asses are drafted to go die for bush's lies they WON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD. Just SHUT UP and GO DIE.

And I hope when they lose their pensions and their medicare and their jobs they WON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD. Just SHUT UP and SUFFER.

And when bush forces through laws and bills they don't like, they WON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD. Just SHUT UP and SUFFER.

And I hope when they're below the poverty level and going to bed hungry every night, they WON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD. Just SHUT UP and SUFFER.

And I hope when the next terrorist attack hits US soil because bush has made us very much less safe and still hasn't bothered to secure our borders, ports or flights, they WON'T SAY A FUCKING WORD. Just SHUT UP and SUFFER.

And I hope someday they realize just how ignorant, how arrogant, and how VERY UNCHRISTIAN they truly are.

[Tom Kitten]

8. wow

I'm so glad I read that as soon as I refreshed...You said it much better than I possibly could!
It sounds ugly coming from us but they're fucking with our very humanity! And they'll pay for it, not all of us are the sheeple...

[chookie]

10. I feel the same anger

I do. I still haven't come to grips with it. I have to find a way to live in a world that has been hijacked by wackos.

Funny thing is -- when I did well economically, and of COURSE it was because I have always worked my ass off -- the thought I held in my heart was, boy, I want all other people to enjoy comfort and security that good wages provide. I wasn't thinking about how poor people were bleeding my tax dollars -- if I was helping the poor, I was happy to do so. Only thing that ever bugged me about taxes was the fact that 50% of it goes to the fucking Pentagon.... They SAY everyone should get what they work for, but the reality is that THEY want to keep it all, and pay us poorly, let us work in unsafe conditions, and try to rob us any way they can.

But in the fires of all the anger I feel towards them, and even as I see them targetting me--a secular "elitist" -- for social reconstruction kinda like Mao's Cultural Revolution -- in spite of my ridicule of their wacko beliefs -- and it pains me to insult them, but since they are on the attack, I will be frank that I think they are religiously insane wackos -- but for all my rejection of them, in my heart of us, I cannot lose a very deep compassion for them, because they may not realize it, but it is their sons and daughters who are going to pay the highest price for their parents' embrace of authoritarianism. We will lose many of our "blue state" poor from the inner cities, but most of the army is "red state". These fucking southerners never learn! They are innately hotheaded and prone to violence, and over and over and over again, they bring misery upon themselves! And now -- they bring misery to us, and to many people in many countries.

Smirky the chimp may find that it plays to his goals to have inflamed the wacko-Americans, but he may not realize that he has ignited a powderkeg that he will not be able to control, any more than he has been able to control the chaos in Iraq....

[phylny]

13. Cowards indeed!

You know...my daughter's roommate gloating, Bush declaring he now has "capital," this drivel from Hardball - they're nothing but bullies. They're acting exactly as a bully would act.

[LynnTheDem]

15. bushCartel & the rightwingnuts; Immature spoilt brats.

I GOT A LARGER PIECE OF CANDY THAN YOU DID NAH NAH NAH!!!

[chookie]

9. The only time they have use for us....

...is when we are trapped in burning skyscrapers targetted by terrorists, or plunging to our death to escape the flames, or desperately trying to ascertain the fate of our loved ones in the vicinity.

They don't seem to "get it" that the latte-sucking sushi-eating volvo-driving elitists they love to hate were the type of people who died in Manhattan on Sept 11.

They hate us North-eastern elitists with the same intensity that Al Qaeda hate America, and basically for the same "moral values" issues Al Qaeda hate us for. And for all their cries of grief about the tragic deaths in Manhattan that day, the truth is, they wish we north-eastern elitists ill and in fact hate us.

The culture war is real. "Freedom" isn't on the march -- authoritarianism is. Given how much the heartland hates we elitists -- I demand that they drop their hypocrisy and drop the pretension that they really give a shit about the people who died in Manhattan.

I have always been tolerant of religion, but I really draw the line when it is being forced down my throat. It has gotten to the point where fundamentalists -- be they wacko Muslims, wacko Jews or wacko Christians -- have hijacked the planet; THEY have set us on a disastrous course, not we the rational and well-educated and the cosmopolitan and the civilized.

I have always given a shit about my fellow Americans, and even if I could not relate to their culture, I accepted them as part of the fabric of our world. But now the ignorant, ill-educated and religiously insane are in power, and it is authoritarianism, not "freedom", that is on the march -- I utterly reject them.

I know that hot-headedness and militarism and fundamentalist religion are aspects of southern culture, which somehow has been exported into the midwest -- where I used to think people were at least sensible even though they were very pious -- but tragically, these have become the qualities of our government. It will lead us only to disaster.

Trouble is -- the biblebangers don't hold smirky accountable for his failures -- because if he fusks up, and people die on a massive scale, then it only proves that biblical prophesy is unfolding before their eyes. Maybe smirky believes the same crazy millenial BS -- Dick Cheney certainly knows there's a lot of money to be made out of it, so he's not going to argue scripture when it fills up his bank account.

Sadly, the growing cultural divide is what got His Chimperial Majesty into power, and we can expect that he will continue to fan the flames of contention, and encourage bitterness between Americans. It suits his purpose. Alas, this bitterness, like his other policies, will have disastrous consequences for our nation and the world.

I hope the world, which is still reeling from the (re) election of this madman, still realize that half of us utterly reject him and his followers. I hope they will still hold us in their hearts, and cry for us when we are in peril -- because I know our so-called fellow Americans won't.

[BlueEyedSon]

14. Are you getting the picture?

[Piperay]

11. Talk to the hand cause

I aint listening why should I, when I speak you never listen. STFU