Cheers for Mark Dayton

[pameladean]

I wouldn't mind in the least if Kerry and Edwards were tied for the place of "most liberal senator." They still wouldn't be particularly liberal by my standards. However, this piece of boilerplate that is endlessly trotted out by the Bush campaign and the media is, despite all their claims that Kerry is the MOST LIBERAL SENATOR EVER INCLUDING ANYBODY YOU CAN THINK OF IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION, simply a snapshot of a batch of liberal and conservative group's ratings of Kerry's voting from the year 2003. The National Journal, which produced the lists used to produce these dopey assertions that are offered up as if they were the results of -- well, I was going to say, solid scientific research, but since the Republican Party in its present incarnation doesn't give a wooden nickel for science, let me say rather, as if the lists were in some approved translation of the Holy Bible -- got a little fed up and did an actual list based on people's overall voting records. This won't have been especially scientific either, I don't imagine, and indeed all the concepts used are terribly fuzzy. Nevertheless, I shall be fuzzy too. Who is actually listed as the most liberal senator? Mark Dayton. I'm pleased to be his constituent.

http://mostliberalsenator.blogspot.com/

Pamela

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

My senior senator is only listed at number 8, but I view him as intelligent and honorable. I look forward to having Barack Obama join him in January.

[pameladean]

I look forward to that too. I wish we could have a dozen of him.

Pamela

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I'm still cranky about the fact that "liberal" has become some sort of curse word, to the point where politicians who, by any objective standard, qualify as liberal are afraid to use the label. It's a case of letting the opposition define the terms, and I'm sick of it. "Liberal" does not mean "extremist," any more than "conservative" does.

I'm proud to call myself a liberal - even though my own politics are somewhat to the left of traditional liberalism.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

I'm proud to call myself a liberal - even though my own politics are somewhat to the left of traditional liberalism.

Ditto.

The liberal-as-insult phenomenon reminds me of the era of Dukakis's candidacy, when "card-carrying member of the ACLU" attained similar status.

[pameladean]

I still haven't gotten over the shock of finding out that calling somebody a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" is supposed to be a terrible revelation and to mean all sorts of bad un-American things.

Pamela

[kightp.livejournal.com]

No kidding. It's like shooting your Guardian Angel or something ...

[pameladean]

One of the hallmarks of people who think this way is that they just never think they could possibly need guarding. I mean, they have money and connections anyway they are Just Simply Correct and therefore beyond censure. I mean, it's the same mindset that thought it was so terribly clever to think up ways to allow the U.S. to use torture.

Pamela

[qe2.livejournal.com]

Another hallmark of such folks is that they don't seem to give a damn whether anyone else might need guarding (outside of their own immediate family members, perhaps, if they vote correctly). That endemic lack of empathy underlies a great deal of what the U.S. does in the world today, both to other countries and to its own inhabitants.

[pameladean]

Yes, exactly so. I meant to imply that in my remark, but since I left several words out of it, it's unsurprising that the implication didn't come across!

I find this lack of empathy really troubling; it feels like a serious social regression.

Pamela

[qe2.livejournal.com]

I find this lack of empathy really troubling; it feels like a serious social regression.

Agreed on the troubling part. About that second bit: when, do you think, were we more empathetic as a society? Or perhaps as a species?

::mildly embarrassed cough:: This might be a good time to actually introduce myself - I delurked before I did so, which I think was not exactly polite. I found your LJ through serenejournal, with whom I'm on a mailing list, and kightp, with whom I share a passion for peaches (although hers is consummated more often, as I have very poor Peach Karma). Having re-read Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary this year as a lovely break from an otherwise quite tough first two semesters of law school, and having had Tam Lin on my top-five-desert-island-books list pretty much since first reading it during a stint at the original Borders, I couldn't resist: I abandoned proper protocol and promptly friended you. I've enjoyed your posts and also this dialogue, and hope you will allow me to keep eavesreading, dropping in from time to time to open my big mouth when an opinion gets the better of me.

[pameladean]

Is there a protocol? I had no idea.

You're very welcome indeed. All my posts so far have been public, and while I do have to guard my speech sometimes because of that, I'm compensated by the regular eruption of delightful new people into the comments.

As for empathy, I'm talking out of my hat here, but I don't think the potential for people generally to be empathic has changed much; I think there's a wide variety of ability to be that way in the species as a whole; and I think society can encourage or discourage this ability to express itself, both intentionally and with the usual way large arrangements of people have of producing a lot of unintended consequences.

Even when empathy is encouraged, it's generally directed, and so is its absence. What really astonishes me about the Bush administration is the number of groups it thinks one should withdraw empathy from as a matter of principle.

Pamela

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

Hate to beat the dead horse (at least it's dead where the people who have listened to me snark for the better part of a year), but Bush and Co have taken to heart the lessons taught by the Third Reich on the principle of the Big Lie.

On the brighter side, my son was rotated out of Iraq last night, so I'm back to just wanting to elect Kerry and Edwards instead of wanting to run Bush and Co down with my little red car, and THEN electing Kerry and Edwards.

[pameladean]

I'm glad your son will be safe.

I like the little red car fantasy, though. I mean, they can still do a lot of damage between now and January. By outing moles in al-Qaeda, and so on.

Pamela

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Just have to share.

Yesterday I was driving on the expressway and I passed a little red car (a mini Cooper) that had a Radio Flyer logo plastered on the side of it.

[pameladean]

*snrch*

That's delightful.

Pamela

[wickdzoot.livejournal.com]

I'm totally into that. Even though my personal fears for my son are dissipating, my rage that there are kids over there dying because Bush has a dysfunctional family and Cheney and Halliburton want to make big bucks has not.

When Nixon was in power, I thought, I tell my son and daughter, that he was the worst president in my lifetime, maybe in the last century. After Watergate, I wore a pin that said, don't blame me, I voted for McGovern. Then, of course, we had Reagan. You know, Saint Ronald. ::horks up hairball:: And I thought he was possibly the worst in my lifetime. So when Shrub got elected, I thought, okay, this is sooooo not what I'd wanted for this country, but we survived Nixon and Reagan and we will survive Shrub.

That happy state of self-delusion lasted about a year.

The first time I mentioned the sound of jackboots on Pennsylvania Avenue, I was more or less jeered at, perhaps predictably.

Interestingly, it just keeps coming out.

Now...

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

If he could just recognize that the first ammendment and that ammendments to the constitution are not unconstitutional -- despicable perhaps, but that's a different kettle o' fish or not.

Re: Now...

[pameladean]

If he were able to think so clearly as to think them despicable, he would have no business WHATSOEVER running for President. *snarl* Oathbreaking bastard.

Pamela

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

What you said is true of/for me, too. Can't think of a thing to add.

[pameladean]

Belatedly, I wanted to say that whenever you agree with me, I think, Oh, good, I can't be too crazy after all.

Pamela