Denver Post on Lookout for 'Hard to Extreme Right' Republicans
George Will is fond of saying that American politics is played between the 40-yard-lines. Well, according to the Denver Post, Republicans are somewhere in the shadows of their own goalposts:
As the deadlines to get on the ballot near, all but one of eight Republicans vying to replace Joel Hefley in Colorado's 5th Congressional District are running hard to the extreme right - touting views against abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.
Never mind that support for Roe in its current form is now the minority position. Never mind that gay marriage runs behind even Walter Mondale at the polls. And never mind that the stem cell debate is, at this point, about federal funding rather than the research itself. These positions are "extreme."
Great point! The paper says Republicans are EXTREME for taking positions that a majority of Americans agree with...even if it wasn't a majority, over 40% of the country agrees with all these positions.
The problem is that the news room is 89% liberal, so to them, Republican positions ARE extreme...see how media bias happens? I don't even think it is on purpose...but when the people who write the stories are all liberal, anything but liberal ideas are seen as foreign and extreme...writing stories that way can convince weak minded people that the Right really is EXTREME and liberal thought is what most people think. Since many people want to fit in, they adopt the liberal idea.
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Notice the issue selection too. Gay marriage, abortion, and stem-cell research are issues dear to upper-middle class liberals -- you know, the kind we'd expect to find in newsrooms. Blue-collar Dems are more concerned about government handouts and reactionary trade policies.
Personally, I'm pro-choice with restrictions, opposed to gay marriage, and in favor of federal stem-cell funding. The pro and contrary arguments for each of these positions aren't particularly "extreme," but just as being labelled undemocratic is vituperative when everyone supports democracy, when there are few extremists, the word 'extremist' becomes a pejorative term.
In light of this, I can say I'm an extremist. My positions are extremely valid. ;)
very nice...
Its amazing how more people do not see this...
I think it does matter too, if you keep reading over and over how anyone who is against gay marriage is extreme or part of a fringe group, or hate group, or anti-gay group...you start to question your beliefs..
but if you are not sure, or are for a liberal cause, your beliefs are reinforced every day in the media
There isnt a good argument against gay marriage without getting religious. Thats the big problem.
rhyno --
There isn't a slamdunk argument against state recognition of polygamous families either. But note two things -- there is no slamdunk argument for it, and there *is* a solid conservative case against experimenting with our social heritage without reason. The entire history of the 1900s in itself makes this clear.
rhyno --
The issue isn't whether polygamy is okay or not. The issue is whether we as a society should be giving state-recognition of it.
As I wrote a few months ago,
"The thirst for "autonomy" and "freedom" has been with Western Civilization since about the time of Rousseau; earlier thinkers like Locke and Hobbes had a closer idea what the noble savage entails. The zeal for unchecked liberation, with its belief in primitivism and the evils of convention, has brought the west horrors from the guillotine of the French Revolution to the gulag of the USSR. Rousseau is wrong -- virtue isn't about freedom of feeling and obtaining your desires. Virtue involves qualities such as Temperance, Modesty, Magnanimity, and Wisdom. The most important *political* virtue is Prudence. We've been putting *restraints* on authority since the Magna Carta; counter-cultural free love revolutionaries should restrain their unthoughtful and shortsighted desire to transform marriage. Their feminist comrades have done enough harm."
I don't feel these comments are related to labeling and media bias any longer...
yeah, they are game. take another look. read a little harder, between the lines. labeling.
I know, my ADD is kicking in again...I really have a hard time sticking to long posts or post with lots of links
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