Steve King: 'Know Thine Enemy' -- Liberals, Progressives...Trotskyites, Maoists, Stalinists... (VIDEO)

Steve LaBonne

February 19, 2010 11:10 AM

Seriously, how do these people manage to feed and dress themselves without help?

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Chris

February 19, 2010 12:53 PM in reply to Steve LaBonne

You're right Steve. Just consider this. Imagine if Democrats held a conference where the sponsors, speakers and attendees were a mix of people who thought Bush was born in Africa, 9/11 was a government plot, people should be given "literacy tests" before being allowed to vote, and that the government was being controlled by foreign plots, would the media call it anything else than what it is: a bunch of fanatical idiots that do good to get out of bed every day.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:07 AM in reply to Chris

At least they're sufficiently intelligent to wear loafers so they don't fail when confronting the task of tying their own shoelaces.

But while it is absolutely clear that they have enemies, they don't seem to have any friends.

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mans_best_friend

February 19, 2010 11:13 AM

This quote should be played on every news outlet every hour of every day. (It won't, of course.) If people want to know why there's a culture war preventing any progress on things they care about, this is the reason.

Partisanship, in the sense of having competing ideas is healthy. The best ideas have a chance to win out. Viewing people with competing ideas as "the enemy" is not healthy.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:09 AM in reply to mans_best_friend

"This quote should be played on every news outlet every hour of every day."

Are you serious? Without it being put into perspective and given context, the balnk repetition of it will be believed as true by at least some.

And, no: having only enemies -- which is scaredy-cat paranoid -- is not healthy.

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innocence is a lie

February 19, 2010 11:18 AM

The enemy is, very simply, the rich. Move along, nothing else to see here.

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mike from Arlington

February 19, 2010 11:20 AM

These are the people that are going to take over Congress if Liberals, Progressives and rank and file Democrats don't unite and fight back.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:14 AM in reply to mike from Arlington

They are as opposed to "diversity" -- and the First Amendment -- as they are opposed to having a system of more than one political party.

They are the hateful assholes who invoke the Constitution every five seconds, yet reject at vvery least freedom of conscience, belief, and apeech whenever the conscience, belief, and speech is anything other than their hateful shrunken-world paranoia-based vapid sloganizing.

These are failed children whose entire substance is absorbed with the smugly hateful effort to come up with variations of their one constant: name-calling.

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ericf

February 19, 2010 11:26 AM

If anyone ever wonders why conservatives are so incapable of compromise, show them that quote.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:22 AM in reply to ericf

It isn't only the ruling out of compromise. It is the absolute rejection of commmunicating anything but their smug, unfounded bile at anything different than themselves. It is an absolute rejection of cooperation becasue their goal is the absolute destruction of all points of view different than theirs, having first been labeled by them with every name they can dirty then sling.

It's easy than learning and knowing: just hang out with one's fellow ignoramouses as a clique, backs turned to the world, and confidently repeat to each other the dirty names by which to exclude all others.

They were always the self-alienated minority in the schoolyard. Always the whiners who ran to Daddy Teacher when their nastiness and bullying was responded to by other than cowering. Always the behind-one's-back dirt-slingers. Always the holier-than-thou trash-talkers and tattle-tales.

Children who to this day take pathological pride in their inability to get along with others.

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Xeronimo

February 19, 2010 11:28 AM

As a European this tone strikes me as very odd.

We've got political parties who don't agree with each other but they would not go to such lows as the Republicans seem to go. The only ones who would do that here are the extreme parties on the left or the right, like Anarchists or Neo-Nazis.

But the civilized parties wouldn't argue like that.

All of this would be funny, and like a soap opera, if it weren't so serious. And tragic.

You guys really need to get over this two party system ...

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Dorn76

February 19, 2010 11:30 AM in reply to Xeronimo

It strikes you as "odd"?

How about batshit crazy? The GOP is becoming just like your skinheads.

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Xeronimo

February 19, 2010 11:33 AM in reply to Dorn76

Ok, bat shit crazy would be more adequate, I guess. You're right :)

Seriously, it is scary to witness their hate, their vitriol and their (unwarranted) fear. That's a very dangerous mixture.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:25 AM in reply to Xeronimo

We agree. And these are the people who most reject psychology and psychiatry as some sort of "Jew-conspiracy," contrary to their flagrantly obvious need of it.

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Powkat

February 19, 2010 11:55 AM in reply to Xeronimo

The key phrase here is civilized parties. The current group of troglodytes using the name of a formerly mainstream political party do not behave in a civilized way. They are true believers and as such feel that they are required to destroy the opposition in the name of their holy cause.

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Schmed

February 19, 2010 12:02 PM in reply to Xeronimo

You guys really need to get over this two party system ...

We're heading down that road. As the GOP continues to embrace this kind of lunacy, the remaining sane conservatives will filter out and some kind of cohesion of the disaffected from both sides of the spectrum will naturally occur. The important question is whether or not the nascent party (or parties) can survive the withering shitstorm that the decomposing Major Two will throw at them to crush the new competition.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:33 AM in reply to Schmed

I don't see the Democracts trying to destroy competition. Especially as the Democratic party contains within it competing groups, but doesn't endeavor to expel them as some sort of poison. It isn't even endeavoring to destroy the Republican party.

Your smug -- elitist -- self-alientation feeds the very paranoia poisoning the Republican party.

Do you every think about the nature of your imaginary utopia? You would have numerous mutually exclusing/hostile MINORITY parties, so whichever of those "won" would be a MINORITY attempting to govern a MAJORITY made of mutually excluding/hostile minorities.

You "third-party" know-it-alls-in-blinders are as tiresome as the failed-children far-right lunatic fringe which is the topic of thsi thread.

Do us all a favor: start your own blog in which your anomolous cheap-shots are the topic, instead of off-topic efforts to distrupt based upon thumb-sucker's whining.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 1:19 PM in reply to Xeronimo

Yep, like yesterday. We need a parlimentary system like west europeans. The risks are too great that another lunatic will occupy the whitehouse like the king in 2012. Next time the lunatic might start a world war over a "battle of civilizations." It is incredibly frightening.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:35 AM in reply to Michael A

The Framers did a great deal more study than you have, including of parliamentart systems. They rejected it.

Prove to us you know more than they.

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Silence

February 19, 2010 1:58 PM in reply to Xeronimo

And become more like Greece?

Derek Gatopoulos, Associated Press Writer, On Friday February 19, 2010, 9:02 am EST

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greek drivers lined up for gas at the few stations still open Friday as a customs strike against government austerity measures left many pumps running dry.

The fuel shortage was the first serious consequence of growing labor protests against the Socialist government's emergency spending cuts program, aimed at easing the debt crisis in Greece and shoring up market confidence.

Customs workers have extended their strike against salary freezes and bonus cuts through next Wednesday, when unions across Greece will hold a general strike that is set to bring the country to a standstill.

European finance ministers have told Athens it must demonstrate signs of fiscal improvement by March 16 or it will be ordered to impose even tougher budget cuts. Greece has promised to slash its deficit from an estimated 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to 8.7 percent this year.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 2:38 PM in reply to Silence

Typical. Never the example like France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, etc., etc., etc. Countries with a much better quality of life FOR ALL, a better government responsive to the people, and a better opportunity for the average person. Typical bullsh*t.

Just like global warming doesn't exist because dc got a snow storm. You people are buffoons.

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Silence

February 19, 2010 3:13 PM in reply to Michael A

Oh yeah. Here we go again with the big, steaming pile 'everything is better in Europe' BS.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 4:27 PM in reply to Silence

Typical steaming pile of everything is wonderful in backwoods alabama. Don't take my "gun" and let me have my 20 year old pickup. Damn feriners.

Ever been to Europe? Ever analyzed European governmental systems and practices? Ever looked at the comparisons analytically as opposed to emotionally. Nope, I am sure not. They are just those damn feriners.

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Silence

February 19, 2010 7:25 PM in reply to Michael A

Lived and worked there for several years..was not impressed. In fact, I don't care if I see the place again.

I like it here.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 8:10 PM in reply to Silence

Sure you did.

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Silence

February 19, 2010 8:56 PM in reply to Michael A

Yeah. No one, but you as ever been to Europe.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 10:54 AM in reply to Silence

Your profession, even when unpaid, is being stupid. Most of your posts are one-line cheap-shots, never substantiated. And when you do "substantiate" your horseshit, you leave out everything that doesn't support your view. And even then the value of your "proofs" is itself of questionable merit.

By contrast, dipshit, OUR system -- "A system of laws, and NOT of men." -- John Adams -- is based upon a BALANCING of interests: no ONE side gets it all.

And one side's -- your petty, peabrained extremists -- smearing of everyone else with uninformed and ignorant lying and name-calling is not only not a balancing interest against all others, it is also observably unbalanced. Hate and vitriol as substitutes for all else is not RATIONAL, let alone REASON.

You claim to oppose one-party systems; but you agree 100 per cent with the far-right lunatic fringe's declared intent of destroying all who hold views not 100 per cent identical with theirs, based upon first slinging labels at those others without any regard for whether those labels are correctly defined, or whether they even apply to those at whom slung.

In other words: You jabber about freedom, but you back the overtly fascist.

Begin to THINK for the first time in your life, uneducated bigot:

If the truth shall set one free, and the US is about freedom, then it is morally imperative that the US be about truth. Lying is not only immoral; but when one engages in a constant flood of lying against all views different than one's own, while hiding behind words such as "freedom" and "democracy," one makes of oneself the enemy of this country.

We DON'T believe, in this country, in ONE-party systems. That includes the ONE-party system intended by you and the America-hating slugs you support and defend.

Do all of us, but yourself first, a favor: learn how to STFU, and then do that.

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Rob R.

February 19, 2010 11:38 AM

He left out commies! I knew he was a Red in disguise!

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ogliberal

February 19, 2010 12:00 PM in reply to Rob R.

An no mention of Saul Alinsky? Glenn Beck's going to have to teach King a thing or tow.

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Matt Jones

February 19, 2010 12:10 PM

How delightfully ahistorical - is he actually claiming that his enemies are *both* Stalinists and Trotskyites? That'd be quite a trick, given some of the disagreements between those camps.

But $50 says there's not 10 people in that room who could actually identify what any of the leaders mentioned in that list *actually* stood for, apart from being "dirty Commies".

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ogliberal

February 19, 2010 1:10 PM in reply to Matt Jones

There's also the inconvenient fact that the founding neo-cons were a bunch of Trotskyites.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 11:15 AM in reply to ogliberal

-- who simply shifted to the far-right because that's where the money is.

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mans_best_friend

February 19, 2010 1:22 PM in reply to Matt Jones

Makes about as much sense as socialist Nazis. I'm not quite sure if these people are that stupid or if they're just assuming their supporters are.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 1:51 PM in reply to mans_best_friend

They are assuming their supporters are. They get a talking points memo from leadership with a list of words that are required to be included in every speech regardless of applicability or definition.

Some of the list:

Nazi
Socialist
Communist
Stalinist
Welfare
Tax cut
Government takeover
Death panel
Keep Government out of healthcare

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eztempo

February 21, 2010 4:39 AM in reply to Michael A

I can't fit that many writing on the palm of my hand! Can't you boil it down to a couple of essentials?

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Zell

February 19, 2010 12:15 PM

Benito Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci for a sentence of twenty years, because of his political beliefs.

There are plenty of communists, all of whom Representative King obviously disagrees with on a wide range of issues. I'm having a hard time imagining why Representative King would bring up a particular relatively obscure Italian communist who died seven decades ago except to impy that "Mussolini was right".

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 11:19 AM in reply to Zell

It also says that those who hold views different than these far-right America-haters should be imprisoned for having "wrong" ideas.

That must be why he didn't mention Mao, who implemented the "Cultural Revolution" to purge and eliminate by "re-education" the "elitists," such as those who had an education instead of only empty slogans and unfounded self-righteous hate.

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MASON

February 19, 2010 12:17 PM

Huh? What ever happened to Osama Bin Laden? I thought he was the enemy.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 11:31 AM in reply to MASON

He isn't now that President Obama is endeavoring to catch him. "We" want to be able to say, as Bushit himself said, "We don't care about Osamsa bin Laden. It is infinitely more important that we get back in power by use of any means we deem necessary."

And-not-so-BTW: "9/11!" "9/11!" "9/11!"

And,

"There were no terrorist attacks while G. W. Bushit was unconstitutionally-appointed President."

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franzi

February 19, 2010 12:19 PM

So, if he's against "liberals," wouldn't that mean he's against figures like Adam Smith, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, etc.? For conservatives, they know absolutely jack-squat about history.

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Michael A

February 19, 2010 1:24 PM in reply to franzi

Oh, the leadership knows history. They just lie. All three of those historic figures would be to the left of the 21st Century democratic party by the way, which is really scary when you think about it.

Can you imagine a dem taking a large land area from private interests and turning it into a national park for all? Talk about being labeled a socialist nazi. Or how about breaking up the too big to fail corporations? Not in a million years. Where is teddy when you need him? I would vote and campaign for him in two seconds.

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JNagarya

February 21, 2010 11:06 AM in reply to Michael A

"Oh, the leadership knows history."

No, they do not. And neither do you.

"They just lie."

And no few of them sincerely believe they are telling the truth, becasue they don't know history.

"All three of those historic figures would be to the left of the 21st Century democratic party"

Absolute horseshit.

"which is really scary when you think about it."

And beyond melodramatic to false.

"Can you imagine a dem taking a large land area from private interests and turning it into a national park for all?"

When that happened -- and it wasn't the universal means of establishing the national parks system -- it was done after years of organizing and protesting by ordinary citizens against corporate intersts. Are you sufggesting that Teddy Roosevelt, as example, was opposed to corporations, simply because he responded to the general majority of will of We the people who were expressing an interest which coincided with his -- that of preserving camping and hunting grounds?

"Or how about breaking up the too big to fail corporations?"

It's only within the last year that such a things was even heard of. Are you unaware that in political reality matters must "ripen" before they can be addressed? Most are still debating waht "too big to fail" means, and to whomnm it might apply, let alone what to do -- if anything -- about such.

"Where is teddy when you need him? I would vote and campaign for him in two seconds."

And doubtless would defend doing so by also defending his pro-corporate war-glorifying and -mongering, and imperialism.

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stephen

February 19, 2010 1:28 PM

Mr. King is soft on Sendero Luminoso.

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Max Thrax

February 19, 2010 1:45 PM

Knowing us liberals would require reading. Fail.

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DB55

February 19, 2010 2:02 PM

Interesting that fascists aren't on King's enemies list, isn't it?

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Matt Jones

February 19, 2010 2:48 PM in reply to DB55

Well, he knows who he's talking to - are they handing out the brown shirts *before* or *after* the convention? ;)

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bluetexas

February 19, 2010 2:26 PM

I thought the enemy was raccoons.

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NotFooledByDistractions

February 19, 2010 2:30 PM

Watching the cpac...are we supposed to take any of those speaking as adults seriously interested in governance and leading this country? This smacks of a junior high pep rally. It's really pretty pathetic.

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