Just wondering.
Now that Democrats have gained full control of the federal government what happened to their wealth of human rights advocacy?
Recently Secretary of State Clinton went out of her way to let China know that the United States will not let human rights concerns hinder our cooperation with China.
Now, I contend that liberal thinking is hypocrisy based but this recent Democrat commitment confirms it.
But beyond their hypocrisy is their insincerity. Republicans can not make any moves without being accused of human rights abuses and even when Republicans lead efforts that advance human rights, liberals deny credit and the ensuing results.
The fact that millions were freed from oppression and torture in Iraq with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant nothing and liberals did nothing but accuse President Bush of waging a useless war. At the same time, they shunned him for not throwing us into civil war in Rwanda.
And what of Rwanda? Where is the liberal urgency to advance human rights there now that they are in charge.
Leadership certainly changes ones priorities, doesn’t it?
What caused Democrats to withdraw their concerns with human rights?
Could it be that achieving them through the political process is a lot harder to do than talking about them?
Or could it be that human rights are nothing more for liberals than a political tool to be used to pull at the heart strings of a compassionate electorate?
I am sure that the people of China are pleased with the new administration and our new Secretary of State. I am sure that the students who risked their lives to participate in protests at Tiananmen Square are glad to know that the worlds beacon of freedom is willing to sell them out for cheap sneakers.
Now I am not suggesting that the Bush administration advanced the cause of human rights in China with any great leaps or bounds but the liberal mentality of people in the Obama administration had them cursing George W. Bush for attending the Olympics in Beijing. Many of them wanted him to boycott the Olympics all together and prohibit our athletes from competing.
The uproar against our participation in the Beijing Olympics reached a fevered pitch during the summer of 2008, but now, in the winter of 2009, with the shoe of leadership on the other foot, the Obama administration came right out and said that human rights in China will have no bearing on our relationship and there is not a peep of protest offered by the left.
In the mean time the Chinese government continues to torture prisoners, deny citizens due process, suppress and torture women, limit speech, the media, independent organizing and freedom of association. All this is added to an undying commitment to suppressing religion which has led to the raping of Tibet that includes the actual raping of Tibetan women, the destruction of over 6,000 monasteries and restrictions prohibiting the practice of their religion.
In the face of all this, Democrat leaders have been able to say that it doesn’t matter. If such a statement came out of a Republican administration, liberals would be tying the knots in nooses made to fit the neck of every member of the President’s cabinet.
So which is it? Do human rights really matter to liberals? Do they mean what they say or do they just say what it takes to look concerned?
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My high school AP history teacher made the same sort of arguments, that the Confederate states did not secede because of slavery, but because they felt the federal government was impeding on their rights as states. That sounded nice and constitutional, but what was the big right these states felt was so important to maintain that they felt they had to pull themselves away from the United States of America? I have to be honest, but in my book, this talk about constitutional law is trumped by human dignity. There are reasons why other countries were able to abolish slavery by proclamation, and the US needed a war of attrition.
erock, only a few States left the Union prior to Lincoln's inauguration and I submit that they had the right to leave the union at any time for any reason. The text book used at West Point at the time for Constitutional Law asserted the same right as well.
imagine89, Lincoln freed no slaves. His proclamation had no effect as it only applied to areas over which he had no control. Slavery was ended in December 1865 with the passage of the 13th amendment, 8 months after his death. Yes the Union was preserved, but the Constitutional Federal Republic was destroyed in the process and replaced with a system of States as vassals to a national government.
Who's Ecock, Kempite?
He must be pretty strong willed if he can remain on the losing side, that promoted slavery and secession from the United States.
Md is a hard core Confederate guy.
I just find it odd that someone would call our most beloved president a failure. He freed 4 million slaves and kept the union together. Thats not failing.
What MD fails to see is that the southern states left before Linclon was even in office because they did not like the outcome of the election. They had no right to leave based on that fact.
I've heard people call conservaives fascist. I never heard anyone call them communists. So i said i never heard them called communists.
Then why is there so much talk about Obama being a socialist, when anyone who knows anything about socialism knows he isn't? Is that just hyperbole that renders anything the speakers says irrelevant?
Exactly Arjay, What a pain in the butt.
Doesn't that sort of make the point the members of the unofficial U4Prez Socialist Party make all the time? When you call everyone a communist, you sort of dilute the meaning of what a communist is. It's like calling rightwingers Nazis all the time, at some point the word is meaningless of liberals think everyone who isn't liberal enough must be a Nazi. The list of Reps/Dems I take seriously because of this alone is running rather thin.
As a matter of fact Imagine they do call em communists and compare em to Stalin I notice you didn't address the other "descriptives" the conservative is called.
However I will pose the question to you as well. Why after all the bitching that the democrats did are we not in Darfur stopping the genocide?I guess something more important came up huh? Sorta like in 75 through 86 the ethnic cleansing of Cambodia was no longer important. Sorta like about thirty other places didn't matter in the last 50 yrs.
No one calls conservatives "communists." Conservative democrat may be a contradiction, but "centrist democrat" or "moderate democrat" would describe most of the party, including the Clintons and Obama.
A conservative democrat is a contradiction in terms due to the philosophy of the modern democrat.
Unfortunatly a conservative republican is an endangerd species cause it innt "cool" to be a conservative. Nowadays they get called monsters, fasciests, and communists.
Grrr, when did "liberal" and "democrat" become synonymous? Oh, thats right. They didn't. Know whats hypocrticial? Not holidng the Republican party to the same standards as the Democrats. Just say it. The Republicans fucked us and the Democrats let them. They both suck. So quit being partisan morons.
Exellent blog kempite one that forces one to reevaluate ones position. Pretty much all of your questions are very valid. Where is the outcry for Dafur? As I recall every liberal I met in the last year or so asked why we weren't there. Now that they have the opprotunity where do they go? Afganistan, Go figure, I guess they aren't for human rights unless it's conviniantand costs nothing
No, it's all good. I knew I should have stayed away from this site.
You guys need a referee?
Oh, so when did the slaves in Delaware and Maryland become free? When did the great Lincoln deign to free the slaves in his own domain? Answer: he never did. They remained in bondage until the passage of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Don't attempt to lecture me with the platitudes and myths of history. I know the facts and I know that the war was avoidable, slavery was dying out, Lincoln didn't give a hoot about the freedom of slaves beyond political purposes and both a strong union and an end to slavery could have been accomplished peacefully and for far less cost, as evidenced by the ending of slavery pretty much everywhere else in the world both before and after our war.
Oh, so when did the slaves in Delaware and Maryland become free? When did the great Lincoln deign to free the slaves in his own domain? Answer: he never did. They remained in bondage until the passage of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Don't attempt to lecture me with the platitudes and myths of history. I know the facts and I know that the war was avoidable, slavery was dying out, Lincoln didn't give a hoot about the freedom of slaves beyond political purposes and both a strong union and an end to slavery could have been accomplished peacefully and for far less cost, as evidenced by the ending of slavery pretty much everywhere else in the world both before and after our war.
The cost of freeing millions of slaves and keeping the union together was too high? I disagree. The war was not avoidable. Something had to be done to stop the creation of slave states.
It is only outlandish if you accept the premise that the war was unavoidable and the cost in lives, money and property was a reasonable way to accomplish a goal that took another decade of occupation and corruption before being realized. The war was avoidable and the cost was far too high.
Lincoln's adminsitration was a failure? I don't think I've ever heard anyone else make such an outlandsih claim.
Lincoln's administration was a failure. Only a handful of States had seceded until Lincoln forced the other Southern States out of the Union by demanding they go to war. Then fours years of bloody war later and the Union was still fractured for another decade with the Southern States under military governments and without representation in Congress. Lots and lots of corpses and it was still three administrations more until the Union was whole when a little diplomacy and some sense could have prevented the war altogether. ----------- FDR's policies extended the Depression and left us behind the rest of the world in economic recovery. ----------- Bush was a crappy President, but he didn't turn people against the government. All those "he's not my President" people who cried about the election forever needed no help from Bush to be against the government. He gave more good examples of why we should all distrust the government, but that's about it. ----------- I stand by my original statement. Government has never fixed anything.
Abrhama Lincolns administration saved the union. And argue all you want, FDR's administration got us through the depression. If you have the right people running the show, the government can fix things. Bush has turned people against the government because he expanded it and constantly screwed things up for America. if government can do harm when it is run poorly, surley it can do good when it is run well.
Government has never fixed anything. The most it has done was stop being an impediment so that the problems could be fixed by the private sector (business, people, organizations, etc.).
The government has caused problems, but it has also fixed problems when it was run by the right people.
Government got us into this mess; government has made the mess worse at each step and government is going to be the ruin of us all if we continue to follow it blindly.
I agree with that too. I think the Republican party got us into thismess with the Iraq war and all this other stuff. Thats one of the main reasons why I dislike their party so. But on the other hand, the Democrats stood back and let them do it. I heard someone say once (to paraphrase): Evil happens when good men do nothing. The Democrats proved that evil happens when mediocre men do nothing.
Small differences are the props of the great political charade.
The only thing is small differences. Abortion, stem cells, and taxes. The reason why I was registered democrat is basically because they're the powerful corporatist party thats more friendly to the working class. I don't like either party, I just like the Republicans a lot less.
The only thing is small differences. Abortion, stem cells, and taxes. The reason why I was registered democrat is basically because they're the powerful corporatist party thats more friendly to the working class. I don't like either party, I just like the Republicans a lot less.
What differences imagine? They both like big government, big spending, curtailing certain liberties, interfering in other countries, fiat currency, imposing their moral values..... Maybe the way they do it is different, but the effect is the same.
The reason why Kempite's liberal bashing always rings hollow is because he does not hold Republicans to the same standard. It's par for the course, partisan hacks do it all the time. It's real easy to talk about the party in power and forget what your party was doing when it was in power. While many conservatives have gone to great lengths to separate what they believe from the Republican record of the last twenty years, they find no problem smearing liberals and Democrats together. It is what it is, it's partisan politics, but it always says more about the author than it does the subject. It is always easier to blame the other guy than take responsibility for your own party's actions. Kempite is taking the path of least resistance, and as a result, he is taken less and less seriously every day. Kempite lets others define his politics for him, he is much more into what he hates than what he believes. And he knows he will get more of a rise from the U4Prez community for writng hackjobs like this than the positive pieces that sometimes crawl in, like those on grass-root campaigns. It's a shock-jock mentality, and that puts him on the level of Rush Limbaugh in terms of integrity. Mark my words, if we didn't give him the attention he craves, he would shrivel up and die.
There are big differences in the party. They're both in the pocket of big business, but there are still other big differences.
They are in the same boat. That is what the people need to realize. There is no significant difference between the two parties, just semantic ones.
Well I think Kemp just to name a few supported the President going to China despite Tibet. The GOP back in the 90s opposed action in Bosnia and Kosovo as it was nation building. I could go on and on. But kemp all you have done is really to put the Dems in the same boat as the GOP.
Kempite, I know you're one of the willfully ignorant, but learn what words mean. "Democrat" and "leftist" are not synonyms. Democrats' support of China regardless of the lack of human rights is one of many reasons why I left the Democratic party. I consider myself a leftist of sorts, and I find it offensive that you would call centrist corporatists democrats "leftists". You're just so partisan that you lump "democrat" and "liberal" under the same name, and then pretend that that makes you win. it doesn't. Read a goddam book once in while. Better yet, stop constantly deffending a party that hates you no matter what they do, and start thinking critically.
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