The neanderthals who still think that liberalism somehow helps the middle class or the disadvataged not only ignore the history of the 20th Century, but also the identities of the rich swells who fund Kerry and his many 527 groups.

According to an NPR reporter this morning, that's is "so called" liberalism.

Listening to NPR so you won't have to.

I enjoy Kerry's ladies-and-gentleman-I-implore-you moments: labels don't matter...anyone can play games with these votes...etc.

You'll know the Kerry camp thinks it's really in trouble with turnout of the base if the candidate pulls a Mondale and does an "I am a proud liberal" speech a week before the election.

All one needs do is look around at what 'liberalism' has wrought over the last half century. Urban renewal, bilingual education, sex education, a skyrocketing drug usage, babies raising babies, 30% of American children are illegitimate, etc. When I hear one of these idiots try to tell me about all the good that 'liberalism' has given us, I'm reminded of the old country lyric 'Who you gonna believe me or your own lyin' eyes?'

But Bart, of course Liberalism failed. Not only were its theories never put in to practice thanks to those Evil Republicans™, but it could still work if only we spend even more money to implement it.

What gets me is that the term "liberal" was, in a way, stolen by leftists from what would now be considered libertarians. A "19th century liberal" was someone who believed in free trade, limited government, and separation of church and state. (That last in the no-established-church sense, not the odd modern no-evidence-of-religion-in-public sense.) Sometime around FDR "liberal" gained its modern meaning, and by the late '60s was a term of abuse.

The process reminds me of what has happened with various terms for "smell." "Stink" was originally neutral (i.e. a good or bad smell), but came to be purely negative, so "smell" became the neutral word. "Smell" is now mostly negative, so we use "odor" to be neutral.

Raoul:

Smells a lot like the same argument the Commies make.

Rick T.: I think your sarcasm detector needs to be adjusted for greater sensitivity.

Unless mine is off.

Had a fish taco for lunch, and I'm here to tell you, my odor's now a long way from neutral.

PapayaSF:

Must be yours today (insert smiley emoticon). I know Raoul's writings and understand perfectly what he is saying. Agree with Bart this time as well.

Hey, if it looks like Commies, sounds like Commies, has an odor like Commies and acts like Commies, be glad you didn't step in it.

But seriously. The arguments the Liberal Left are using these days aren't much different than the excuses offered up by the Marxists/Gorbachev-apologists in the 1980s. They can't point to any success, they willfully ignore their failures, or blame them on others, they denigrate any criticism and opposition, and then have the gall to plead for another chance."Trust us", they say, because as Kerry is so fond of saying, "We have a Plan."

>Mr. Kerry is such a retrograde figure he seems
>something out of the 1970s.

1968, actually -- the year Sauron got the Ring and gave us Vietnam Angst, Woodstock, the Sexual Revolution, and the counterculture movement.

I don't remember much of it; I was into slot cars at the time.