Use this thread to admit the opinions that might not be all that popular in the liberal mainstream.
First, I am still bugged about the whole thing about understanding our enemies. Even on the liberal blogosphere side, I still see far too much backpedaling away from the whole concept of seeing our enemies' point of view. Here's the thing about GOP rhetoric. It's like water. For as long as they find a crack, it'll keep flowing, until you stand up to it FULLY and COMPLETELY, like a dam.
Here's an example. Remember what Rove said about how those awful liberals want to give our enemies understanding? Really, what works better?
"Look, Al Queda is an evil organization. They are bad people. This isn't about understanding them, it's about beating them. I hate Al Queda just as much as the Republicans do. All I meant to say was (blah blah blah). But we must defeat this evil and not hesitate to do so. God bless America."
Or
"Of course I want to understand them. But here's something that evidently hasn't occurred to the Republicans. Understanding your enemy is not the same as defending them. American citizens know that it's important to understand where your enemy is coming from, in order to know how to defeat them. There are entire careers based off of this truth, from detectives to criminal profilers to intelligence analysts. The more important question here is, why don't the Republicans want to understand the enemy? When we look back at the series of incompetent and ineffective actions the Republican Administration has taken against our enemies, that have failed to anticipate their actions, that have failed to counter their moves, it becomes clear that the problem here is that the Republicans don't understand our enemies enough. We need to fight smarter. By understanding the enemy, we can defeat them, something the Republicans have thus far been unable to do."
Someone with better wordpower than I can probably turn it around a lot better, but the fact here is that for as long as Democrats respond with fear or guilt or shame about their views, it's like a chink in the dam, and the Republicans will use it to tear the rest down. All they know is destruction.
Here are some smaller opinions that I imagine probably wouldn't go over well here.
I don't think that being homophobic in the red states is necessarily a bad thing. That's one of the main things I got out of Brokeback Mountain. I mean, honestly. If you were a guy that thought you were straight, but then started feeling some gay feelings, and you were in Wyoming or Texas, wouldn't you feel a bit homophobic? I sure as hell would. At what point is it merely pragmatic, emotionally healthy self-protectiveness? I'd like to quit demonizing these folks. There's a lot to be scared of in those areas of the country, and being scared is also not much of an option there. The problem becomes when that fear turns into judging against the self, and fermenting into the kind of self-frustration and tension that leads to violence. I'm glad that that movie is out, because maybe it'll help some of those people see that they're not alone in feeling that homophobia, and maybe that'll help keep that fear and tension from fermenting into more violence.
Third. I think we're on our last legs with the whole Iraq thing. Seriously. The government is getting more stable, and those of us that are out on that limb so far that it would turn into political BAD NEWS if things started going well... they're hurting the rest of the Democratic Party. I think we need to pivot, and fast. You know what's going to happen? Our soldiers are going to continue to die, and people are going to continue to call for the soldiers to withdraw, and they're eventually going to withdraw, and Iraq's going to be left with a functioning government that certainly isn't going to be great, but is going to be better than what was there before, and frankly probably better than what Iran has now. And the question is going to be, "Sure it sucked, but are you okay with how it's turned out?" And America is collectively going to shrug and get over it. If Iraq doesn't descend into a huge civil war that overwhelms the government and pulls in Turkey and destroys the oil pipelines, which we should NOT be betting on politically, they'll shrug and get over it. I'm telling you, that's what is going to happen.
In order to get political mileage out of this, this needs to be less about Iraq being a bad idea, and MORE about the incredibly incompetent way that Bush went about it. The same aim could have been accomplished with less cost, less loss of life, and less damage to American reputation. Bush will often do the wrong thing. But even when he's trying to do the right thing, he will do it in a grossfully negligent wrong way. And more importantly, the Republican party was defending his incompetent and willfully negligent actions every step of the way. We can't trust them to do the right thing. They can't walk and chew gum at the same time. What does it matter if we overthrow a tyrant on the other side of the world if they drag America's flag through the mud at the same time? We need more competent leadership, etc, etc. We can't afford another clusterfuck like this. If another Iraq happens, do we want another Bush in there, or someone competent for a change? The NSA thing helps us here, because it focuses attention on how he's a bad president because of his attitudes and beliefs, and not just because of the Iraq "failure".
People have to remember that Iraq has always been a wedge issue, and Bush's incompetence has made that invisible. For this entire war, the Democratic population that is anti-war, and the Democratic population that is interventionist, have easily been able to paper over their differences, simply because Bush has made it so FUBAR. But this wedge is going to come back to bite us in the ass if we're not careful. The wedge is: Would Iraq have been worth doing if we had known the real reasons, and done it more comptetently? This Iraq issue is eventually going to be like Gore's election loss. Something that should have been different, but ISN'T, so "get over it". That's what the moderates of the nation are going to feel. The anti-war side is going to LOSE (in the near term) in this wedge battle, as they always do. The best they can hope for is a greater sensitivity to war on the part of the American citizen, and we've got that. But until the military-industrial complex is dismantled, which will never happen unless we lose a major war on American territory or lose all our wealth in a spectacular global financial realignment, the most we can hope for in the near term is a change of a few percentage points. Interventionism through diplomacy and threat of violence, rather than actual violence. The occasional armed skirmish against mini-tyrants who attempt to call our bluff. Financial and political bullying to continue to get sweet oil deals, freezing out the little people. I honestly think that's the most we can hope for in terms of peace, at least until the next huge technological innovation that changes the equations in terms of energy production and earth's resources. Hopefully we can get a president that will at least create an inviting atmosphere for that kind of technological innovation, but even that would still only be changes on the margins.
What sort of opinions do you have that don't really feel to you like they're in the liberal/dkos mainstream?