velvetpage | Rebuttal

Borrowed from

siren2541, who, to her credit, was pissed off by the list.

Top 11 things you must believe if you are a liberal:

1.You believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese.
2.You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding.
3.You have to be against capital punishment but for abortion on demand - in short, you support protecting the guilty and killing the innocent.
4.You have to believe that all trial lawyers are selfless heroes and all doctors are overpaid.
5.You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented charges in climate, than by yuppies driving SUVs.
6.You have to believe that gender roles is right-wing propaganda, but being gay is natural.
7.You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
8.You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
9.You have to believe the NRA is bad, because it stands up for certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because it stands up for certain parts of the Constitution.
10.You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
11.You should be shallow, muddled, contradictory, divorced of logic and a bit sadistic.

Rebuttal:
1) How are those connected in any way? Both are a threat. There's no point in having one be more of a threat than the other. They've set up a straw man comparison. (Also: Red Chinese? I think I missed this colour designation back in preschool.)
2) No, the AIDS virus is spread by infected people who don't have the information or resources to keep others safe. Funding helps them get information and resources. If you'd rather keep them ignorant and dying, which one of us is sadistic?
3) I'm against turning people in my country into legal killers of fellow citizens, and I'm against the possibility that someone we think is guilty may actually be innocent. I'm also against back-alley acts of desperation brought on by intolerance and ignorance.
4) Doctors aren't overpaid, but insurance companies are.
5) I believe both, actually. Again, straw man comparison. There's no reason why both those propositions can't be true, and if they are, the situation is rather worse than if only one of them is true.
6) Gender roles - no problem. Gender roles as biological determinism - now there's the problem.
7) No, I believe that it's a role of government to ensure that businesses don't create oppression. Regulation and control are not the same thing.
8) Enough already with the straw-man comparisons!
9) No, I believe that nothing in the Constitution requires all types of guns to be available for private ownership.
10) Um, socialism HAS worked. These guys must be hay farmers - where else would they get all that straw?
11) Considering how many contradictions and poor debating tactics I just pointed out, this is a fine example of the straw man calling the scarecrow yellow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Red Chinese?

Communist China, as opposed to the non-communist Chinese in Taiwan.

And there's a lot of raw fertilizer in this list to go with the straw, in my opinion.

Ah - this probably translates to "Of course socialism doesn't work - look what happened to the USSR!"

Nuclear weapons in the hands of the PRC. You know, the same PRC that George Bush and his cronies are channeling so much American money to, for so little return?

Another problem with this list is that it collects the views of several different liberals, and combines them into one straw-liberal. If there is anybody in the world that believes all of these items, I will be surprised. If there are enough people like that to make five percent of the voters in the United States, I'll have to buy a hat so I can eat it.

I'm also annoyed with the "bad/good" assumption. The NRA and the ACLU both have done good things. Both organizations have also done things that I didn't like in the least. Trial lawyers can be good or bad - to assume anything of them as a group is ridiculous. Doctors can be overpaid, underpaid, or somewhere in between. More often underpaid, in my opinion, but my opinion and USD 3.75 will buy a cup of espresso from Starbucks.

Correction: If there is any liberal in the world that believes items 1-10...

The degree of contempt and vitriol in that list just makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

And they clearly Don't Get It. Ah, well.

I'm still getting over THEM calling LIBERALS sadistic. We're not the ones playing Russian Roulette with our children's health through abstinence-only education. We're not the ones forcing women to go through pregnancies and live in poverty afterwards. We'[re not the ones who refuse to help stop the spread of AIDS because heaven forbid the pharmaceutical companies should see less profit from their work! And the list goes on. . .

This thing is yet another variation of a list of some US rightwingers put together - it's been circulating on discussion forums for years now. It's what rightwingnuts think (either as a joke or for real) "Liberals" believe. I've also seen the "Liberal" list of what rightwingers "believe" on the same forums.

A while ago, I read an interesting article on the rise of conservatism in the U.S. The article blames it all on a small cabal of people who began work in the 1960s to change the political landscape of the U.S. I don't doubt that it is true, you can track a number of things back to a small number of billionaries who consistently fund "independent conservative think tanks" like the Heritage foundation.

What's my point? Well I'm always suspicious of lists like this, they're there for 2 reasons, one to poison the word "liberal" to those who don't strongly identify with the position, and two to rally the faithful to mock the other side and thus convince people to support their position to maintain the respect of their piers. I always wonder, was this list planted as part of an astroturf campaign? Is it circulating now because of the upcoming U.S. election?

It's ancient. It's been circulating around discussion forums for years now. It's some conservative/rightwingnut forumite's idea of a joke. Ignore it. The "Liberal" version -- "What Conservatives Think" -- is equally retarded. I'm surprised no one's seen these things before. I guess you never hung out on Delphi Forums at all...

I won't get too worked up over it, though I did decide to make my own counter list. Just to see what I could come up with that would be, well a reasonable list of issues where conservatives and Liberals disagree. Meh. It's harder than it looks.

I think it probably is. Certainly it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

Wow. The person who came up with the original "top 11 things you must believe if you are a liberal" obviously never bothered listening to a liberal, never bothered talking to a liberal, may have never met anyone who admitted to being liberal, and intended this to be circulated to people who weren't liberal.

Fuck, I hate conservatives like that. They're so busy being right that they forget to be decent human beings.

perfect comment!

Good heavens, who wrote that original list? It's....scathing and willfully ignorant, a combonation which I find completely vile. Good rebuttals, though.

p.s. asqmh told me I should friend you. Do you mind?

Of course not. Welcome. :)

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