Who exactly are Right-Wing Extremist - response
My mother-in-law sent me an article from the fun-loving and open-minded American Spectator that is just begging for a response. I went to the American Spectator website to find the original article, but they don't seem to have a search function on their website. If anyone can get me the original, entitled "One Question for Chuck Schumer" from November 1st, I would be much appreciative. A quick Google search tells me that Herbert Meyer of The American Thinker wrote the article, but I can't get their website to load. Whenever it does work, apparently it will be here.Before we get to the article, let me start with the obvious. Name calling is childish and immature. It doesn't help move America forward and certainly doesn't make the issues any easier to understand. That being said, politics (and politicians) tend to be quite childish and immature. Combine that with the 15 second soundbite culture we all live in and enjoy (otherwise 24 hr news tv wouldn't be so popular), and you've got an excellent recipe for labeling political opponents.
Also, let me add the Dems are late in the game on this one. We let Republicans and conservatives pillage the term "liberal" (from the root liberty) so much that we've had to reinvent ourselves using "progressives" (which is a better label anyway because it makes our opponents regressives). You've heard it, heck you might have used it, that, "so and so is a liberal." From the mouths of Republicans/conservatives that is always an attack. Look at Ann Coulter's book "How to talk to a liberal (if you must)" the whole book attacks those dreaded liberals. That term is never defined.
So let's just forget that somehow Dems are the first to label opponents with meaningless titles and get to brass tacks. I'm not Senator Schumer, but I'll take a stab at this...
One Question for Chuck Schumer
The one phrase that Democrats in the US Senate and elsewhere in that party’s leadership use more than any other to smear the men and women President Bush has nominated for key positions in our government is: “right-wing extremist.” ... And since no Democrat uses this phrase more often – or more sneeringly – than Senator Charles Schumer of New York, presumably it ought to be a piece of cake for him to answer this question:
“Precisely what views must an individual hold to be a “right-wing extremist”?
...So, in the interests of saving time of giving the senator a head start on the kind of answer I’m seeking – in other words, of shoving him into a corner – here goes:
A “left-wing extremist” is an individual who believes:
• That the thing growing inside a woman’s body isn’t human, and can be disposed of at any time before birth.
• That our Judeo-Christian heritage is an abomination, that religion ought to be removed from the public square, and that our country should become a secular society.
• That the State, rather than parents, should have the primary responsibility for raising children.
• That private enterprise should be tolerated, because it generates the wealth for politicians to redistribute, but that entrepreneurs are evil.
• Professes to love our country, but who shows more concern for the rights of terrorists than for the survival of the Americans they’re trying to kill.
• Shows up at every memorial service for the victims of 9-11, but whose speeches and votes make clear that he or she really believes the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were legitimate responses to US policy, and that in effect we “had it coming.”
• Uses the phrase “I support our troops” as a code-word for “I hope we lose the war in Iraq so the Bush Administration will be a failure.”
You've seen his side, now here's my effort.
A Right-Wing Extremist is someone who believes:
- that every woman who has a miscarriage should be considered a crime scene and interrogated by the police and medical examiner.
- that even though the universal Christian Church can't figure out exactly what it believes, and regardless of others opinions or beliefs, the government should enforce a religious code.
- that every citizen that wants one should have a machine gun.
- that concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few people is a good thing.
- Others not fortunate enough to be born in America should not be extended basic human rights.
- minors deserve the death penalty.
- "staying the course" is an effective counter-insurgency strategy even when it has never worked in the history of modern warfare.
- so strongly that men are the head of the household that women lose the right to their own bodies when they get married.
- wants to strengthen families, but not if it means you'll miss work.
- doesn't believe discrimination exists for reasons of race, disability or sex.
There you are sir, your answer. And for the record, I think Alito could qualify as a right-wing extremist.
posted by Expat Teacher @ 5:01 PM
