The Fear Card

From: Michael Busick
Subject: RE: The Fear Card
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:44:52 -0800

OK, but have you ever heard of someone beyond relieved their guy won?

I'm still thinking about moving to Canada someday because of the way our government is going about its current business, but that just means I'm quitting and the narrow-minded folks win. :)

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From: Brian Menard
Subject: Re: The Fear Card
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:51:17 -0500

A fair point, but in principal no different than the Dems and others who said they would go to Canada if Bush were reelected (and then didn't when he was), or folks who said their feared for their safety because he continues to reside in the White House.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Busick
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 4:43 PM
Subject: RE: The Fear Card

On KIRO radio on the evening of Bush's second inauguration, I heard the voice of someone who was at the event and she said and I quote, "I'm beyond relieved that Bush is still president."

If that wasn't the voice of someone who was played by the GOP's Fear Card, I don't know what else it could've been.

I've voted for presidential losers before -- and winners -- and I hope I live long enough to vote for winners and losers again, but if I ever feel "beyond relieved" that my guy (or gal) won, I hope I know at least one person who will be around to remind me how wrong it is to feel that way about a presidential candidate or president.

Happy (because they won) or sad (because they lost), sure, but "beyond relieved"? How scared was she about Kerry and why? Was it at least in part because of what Cheney said about us getting hit again if Kerry's elected?

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> Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:07:52 -0800
> From: Young H. Kim
> Subject: The Fear Card
>
> I would like a bit more discussion on this topic as well. How is the fear card
> played by the Dems? Are we talking about class warfare and "fleece the rich"
> rhetoric from the Left? If so, are the wealthy and privileged conservatives living
> in fear of the Left and Big Government destroying their lives and livelihood?
> Perhaps so given the trend in gated communities and private security guards. Help
> us to understand.
>
> --- Michael Busick wrote:
>
> >
> > How have the Dems played the post-9/11 fear card like the GOP has? Each side has
> > long said that this country would be safer with their version of government as
> > opposed to the other one, but since 9/11, the Dems haven't put together a Patriot
> > Act or curbed civil rights or invaded the privacy of national and local protest
> > groups.
> >
> > And you're right about the Founding Fathers with regard to their hypocrisy about
> > slave-owning. :)
> >
> > However, it seems like most of America (and a lot of innocent people around the
> > world) are finding themselves caught between the evangelical and neo-con fanatics
> > and the Islamic fanatics. Too bad there isn't some desolate island where these
> > fanatics can be sent to fight it out until they're all gone.
> >
> >
> > From: Brian Menard
> >Subject: Re: A rising or setting sun?
> >Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:21:28 -0500
> >
> > All that may be well and good to profess, just as folks on the other side profess
> > their arguments against their "dangerous" opponents (since BOTH sides play their
> > own versions of the fear card so successfully and well without hesitation), but
> > the bottom line remains that while one pseudo-army of Americans shares lefty views
> > and is willing to do battle in the political equivalent of MAD against the
> > righties, there is also a pseudo-army of Americans who have opposing righty views
> > and are willing to do battle in the political equivalent of MAD against the
> > lefties. At some point we've either got to be sincere in moving past the anger
> > and stubborn resolve to find a way to work together constructively, or we have to
> > try to figure out how to eliminate each other while remaining standing ourselves.
> > If 12 million illegal aliens would be difficult to identify, locate, and send out
> > of the country (and, indeed, it would!), just imagine how difficult it would be
> > for the left side of the political spectrum to get rid of the right side or vice
> > versa! Given Brian A's comments about the world's view of America, it appears no
> > place would be willing to take either side. That rather minimizes options; and,
> > since I'm not a fan of genocide, my preference is to figure out how to live
> > together, however imperfect the relationship. Going back again to our founding
> > era - and Franklin, in particular, who played a key levelheaded role in
> > negotiating compromise, there was a keen awareness during the Second Continental
> > Congress of the fundamental differences between slaveholding South and nonslave
> > North. Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence (hypocrisy factor
> > aside) was gutted of anti-slavery language by Edward Rutledge and his southern
> > block, and John Adams - no weakwilled pushover in anyone's estimation - gritted
> > his teeth and accepted imperfect progress together with his opponents over
> > self-destruction from mutual inflexibility. This is not at all to belittle the
> > deeply felt positions we all hold. I can run through my litany of media baggage,
> > Clinton baggage, resentment in response to election result resentments, etc. But
> > at the end of the day, merely spouting our respective deeply held beliefs won't
> > get us anywhere productive; it only reinforces why "we" think "they" are horrid
> > urchins that need to be crushed and consumed by a great Cosmic Otter. (Sorry, the
> > seascape my daughter showed me earlier - complete with an urchin on the sea floor
> > for an otter to eat - is still on my brain.) If we can't be tolerant enough of
> > each other's views to stave off the presumption that internal opponents are no
> > better - and perhaps worse - than external enemies, then Adamson is right about
> > the setting sun but for reasons far different that what he states. "United we
> > stand // Divided we fall // And if our backs should ever be against the wall //
> > We'll be together, together you and I" - I think it was 1970.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Michael Busick
> > Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 1:44 AM
> > Subject: RE: A rising or setting sun?

> > In the late 60s -- or early 70s -- a musical group called "Brotherhood Of Man"
> > had a hit with a song called "United We Stand". The chorus started with
> > (predictably) "United We Stand/Divided We Fall...". As long as one side plays the
> > fear card -- and is successful with it -- this country will never reach the
> > potential that our Founding Fathers hoped we would reach. We shouldn't have to
> > give up all of our basic, civil, American rights in order to be sufficiently safe.
> > When this country becomes a safe police state, the terrorists win. "He who
> > sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." Benjamin Franklin said that --
> > and he was never president. When we spend more time pointing out each other's
> > differences than each other's similarities, the terrorists win. When we start
> > deciding which parts of the Constitution, Bill Of Rights and Declaration Of
> > Independence work and which ones don't, the terrorists win. It's common knowledge
> > that the bad guys don't like our freedom. Why, then, are we continuing to let it
> > be taken away from us to try to fight those bad guys? Each of us is part red and
> > part blue. The right candidate to properly lead this country in 2008 -- and beyond
> > -- will remind us of that and that candidate should win.