Nothing to fear but…

August 30, 2007

In the unlikely event you haven’t seen it elsewhere, the WaPo had a really interesting front-page piece today about how and why Democrats keep losing fights with the Bush White House over national security and counter-terrorism policies. The leadership (and the grassroots, and the netroots) is frustrated that the party knows what to expect, is right on the substance, and is fighting a scandalously-unpopular president, and yet they managed to lose every time.

The list is familiar, at this point — FISA, warrantless-searches, habeas, Guantanamo Bay detainees. Every time, the White House and its allies argue that unless Dems give Bush exactly what he wants, Dems will not only be tarred as “weak,” they’ll actually have blood on their hands in the event of another attack. Every time, just enough Dems (by no means a majority) are scared into submission.

“The most controversial matters are the ones that people use to form their opinions on their members of Congress,” said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who voted for the administration’s [FISA] bill. “I do know within our caucus, and justifiably so, there are members who have a real distaste for some of the things the president has done. But to let that be the driving force for our actions to block the surveillance of someone and perhaps stop another attack like 9/11 would be unwise.”

That quote doesn’t make a lot of sense. There’s a “real distaste” among Democrats when Bush wants unchecked power that can be abused with no oversight, which undermines the rule of law, and which is fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Davis says Dems have to go along anyway, as if there’s no other way to prevent terrorism. It’s just bizarre.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) noted that he’s pushing a bill to restore habeas corpus, but is facing resistance from some of his Democratic colleagues who ask him, “Well, what about the 30-second spots?”

Hilzoy implored Dems to “grow a spine.”

[T]he Republican party is not very popular these days. Moreover, it’s not as though it’s hard to craft a really inspiring message on these issues. We’re not talking about some arcane feature of patent law that it’s genuinely difficult to get people to care about; we’re talking about the freedoms we all claim to cherish. Honestly, if Democrats can’t figure out how to make a winning issue of keeping the government from being able to throw you in jail without having to explain themselves to anyone, or at least to prevent it from outweighing what looks to be their pretty serious electoral advantage in 2008, they must be brain dead. And if they can’t be bothered to support our Constitution if there’s any possibility that it might cost them politically, then their love of their country must be dead as well.

Kevin Drum agrees with the substance of this, but explains why this is so difficult.

The fact is that it is hard to craft an inspiring message on these issues. The vast, vast majority of Americans aren’t affected in any way by Guantanamo or NSA eavesdropping or enemy combatant laws. And when people aren’t personally affected, it’s hard to get them to care, especially when your opponents are screaming about how it’s going to be your fault if terrorists attack this summer and kill thousands of people because you neutered the NSA’s ability to listen in on Osama’s cell phone conversations.

By way of analogy, the census bureau announced yesterday that 47 million Americans don’t have health insurance. A lot more either have lousy insurance, are afraid of losing their insurance coverage, or are swamped with medical bills even though they’re supposedly fully covered. That’s a lot of Americans who are very personally affected by the malfunctioning of our healthcare system. And yet, Clintoncare failed in 1994 anyway and we’re no closer to healthcare reform today than we ever have been. It’s just too easy to create oppositional political campaigns that scare the hell out of people.

There isn’t necessarily a disagreement here — Kevin and hilzoy are pretty much on the same page — but I think Kevin’s right to emphasize the inherent challenge of responding to baseless scare tactics. When the debate gets down to soundbite to soundbite, as it often does, and the right says, “Destroy habeas or we might all die,” Dems haven’t quite figured out what to do.

The sooner they come up with something, the sooner they’ll stop losing. Any suggestions?

Because the times have changed, I think, and the fights aren’t as desperate (as say, against the draft, slavery, segregation, or for civil rights in general) liberals don’t have a good sense anymore of the kind of slog they have to do. Life is a lot less boring and a lot more distracting in an age of 80+ TV channels and high speed Internet and great movie special effects and perfectly working cell phones. Activism and arguing are work. Dem activists just have to realize that what it’s going to take is arguing point for point, breaking it down, just like in the bad old days- thinking about it and facing every argument- not just throwing out a few sound bites, barely ever thinking about the issue, and trusting people will eventually come to their own wise conclusion.

Once you craft the argument well, you work on crafting it into smoother, more persuasive copy and really criticizing conservative counterarguments that come up.

  • I was struck by Rep. Lincoln Davis’s (D-Tenn.) rationale for giving up our civil rights being “to perhaps stop another attack like 9/11. . .” If I knew how to italicize on a thread, I surely would have italicized the word “perhaps”. That kind of reasoning or logic (?!) can be used to justify anything.

  • You put the words in the politicians’ mouths, meaning the copy trickles up from the grassroots. But you can’t be afraid of the conservative points because they have a way of making it sound common sense at first. You’ve go to think about the issue and why the conservative is wrong.

    I know I’ve written stuff specific to this issue again and again on this blog, and I don’t feel like doing it now, but later on I’ll come back and write a comment.

  • Any suggestions?

    Well, if we had a Democratic majority in Congress I’d say “impeach.” Wouldn’t hurt to re-investigate 9/11 either, but I repeat myself.

  • Carry around a photograph of General George Custer in their wallets with a caption that reads: “Terrorists don’t say look at what we did to the Americans…they say look at what we made them do to themselves.”

  • Some of these things shouldn’t be so hard to frame. Example: habeas corpus.

    Repubs: “Destroy habeas or we might all die”

    Response: “Heabeas corpus has absolutely NOTHING to do with our ability to detect and stop a terrorist attack. It has to do with the legal process after someone has been arrested.”

  • The Davis quote makes more sense if you revise it as follows:…” there are members who have a real distaste for some of the things the president has done…” but that isn’t what he said, which is the problem.

    You know, all it would take are a few ads that would show some ordinary person, sitting at his or her desk at work, or dropping the kids off at school, or standing in line at the grocery or hardware store. Picture them being accosted by grim-faced men in suits and flashing badges, being handcuffed and frog-marched out to a Department of Homeland Security van, accompanied by the shocked faces of co-workers, or kids screaming “where are you taking my mommy?” – all the while imploring to be told why they were being arrested, where they were being taken, what had they done, what they were going to do to him or her, asking to please contact a lawyer or family member – only to be met with stony silence, until, as the now-prisoner looked from one to the other in fear, was told in chilling tones, “We don’t have to tell you anything, we don’t have to give you access to a lawyer and we don’t have to let you call anyone to tell them where you are.” Voice over is, “Under the legislation singed into law by this administration, this could happen to you.”

    Think maybe they would “get it” then?

  • Well you don’t fight the issue of habeas corpus with the issue of accused terrorists. You fight the issue with the threat to American citizens’ loss of habeas corpus. You don’t fight the death penalty with a child murderer, you fight it with someone people can relate to and have some bit of sympathy with. You don’t argue for gay rights using the Gay Pride Parade, you use the plight of mainstream gay people. You don’t argue against illegal surveillance in terms of whether it’s fair to Islamic fundamentalist, you argue it in terms of someone main stream Americans can relate too. You still fight the issue, but you use the best examples of the issues, not the most extreme.

  • Basically the short cut is to talk about all the failures of the security, law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the war on terror and say that that’s the reason 9/11 happened, not the lack of the PATRIOT Act or Gitmo. Point to the recent CIA inspector general report that said it was all Tenet’s fault, point to the shut-down of the CIA’s hunting-for-Osama operations, the lack of success in finding Osama, and the WH’s ignoring the pre-9/11 warnings, and to the times when innocent guys got locked up for a year. Point to one or two of these things, literally with no windup beforehand, and say, “Do you want these people to be able to tap phones without getting permission? Do you want these people picking out who gets locked up without telling a judge?” You literally have to scare people more than these guys are scaring people, even though the Dems aren’t used to it, unfortunately. And stop being so collegial to these people. The Luntzes, the people who write the talking points for these people, literally think we’re all better for nothing than to fill our own graves with. Talk about them like they’re the filth they are.

  • Both Mr. Lincoln and Gen. Davis would have tried desperately to pull Lincoln Davis’s head out of his ass. You don’t give the dictator another sword no matter how he “promises” to use it. This is the Bush administration we are dealing with you idiot. He has abused every power given to him. Locking up all of America, making them use hall passes to do anything wouldn’t stop another terrorists attack. You don’t become so paranoid of terrorists that you burn down America to keep them from attacking it. The logic of these “representatives” is absurd. There are more effective ways of dealing with terrorists than removing all that makes America the land of freedom. It’s the logic of “kill everyone, that way we will be sure we got the terrorist”. You don’t protect the constitution by burning it.

  • Anne: short answer is “no.” Drum is, unfortunately, pretty close to correct.

    Start from this assumption: if you aren’t in any way part of the actual body politic, you don’t exist to the decisionmakers. (If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it. . .) The “Americans that Count” – those who vote, write checks, volunteer, or even talk politics with friends enough to influence people – are perhaps 60% of the adult population. That skews demographically: more white, older, more educated, more income.

    Now ask only those in that group, which are you more concerned will happen to you, that you will (a) be secreted away to Guantanamo and tortured without anyone knowing where you are and with no access to attorneys or family or (b) that you will be killed in a terrorist attack – I would be serious money that (b) wins handily – more than a 55-45 spread.

    Logic says Republican fear-mongering should be easy to refute. My hypothetical shows why it is not so easy.

    Note: that does not mean Dems should roll. No one ever said this was or should be easy. Sometimes you have to take the hard stance (not to be confused with the wide stance). A fictional movie President once delivered a speech about being “too busy trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job.” Any Dem in Congress who sees themselves in that line should step down and find another line of work.

  • Right says, “Destroy habeas or we might all die,”

    Progressives say, “Destroy habeas and America dies,”

  • Re: bjobotts @ #10
    Speaking of Mr. Lincoln…

    “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

    -Abraham Lincoln

  • I like Anne’s (@7) idea of an ad. If we don’t get habeas restored, then jokes like the following one — from erst-while USSR — will become commonplace here, too.

    At an international journalist conference, an American and a Russian share a hotel room. In the morning, the naked corpse of the Russian jounalist is found in the street. The police come to interrogate the American. “Describe to us what happened”.
    “Well, after the lectures, we had supper, a drink, then we came up here. I undressed, put my pajamas on, brushed my teeth — as is the custom in my country. He undressed and jumped naked into bed as, I assume, is the custom in your country. We chatted a bit, then turned the lights off. Around midnight, there was a knock at the door. I got up to open the door – as is the custom in my country. He jumped out of the window…”

  • Day after day after day, I read the comments of people here and on other blogs, and over and over I read things that articulate what the problems are and how to counter – and even solve – them.

    How many times must we articulate this stuff before the people who represent us in the halls of Congress thunk themselves on their collective foreheads and cry, “D’oh!”

    I really am so frustrated and so tired of this message being so available – it gets to them by phone, by fax, by e-mail –and yet we keep seeing them do the same ineffective and meaningless things over and over and over – I don’t get that. At. All.

    Are they stupid? Are they blind? Deaf? Are they convinced that there is no value in what we’re saying? I’m getting to the point where I feel I have no voice in my government, no representation. That what’s happening in Washington bears no resemblance to representative government, because representative government requires acknowledgment that those elected to office actually represent real people.

    What’s the answer? Hell if I know – and if I did know, what difference would it make? No one who could do anything about it would.

  • Kevin Drum wrote: “The vast, vast majority of Americans aren’t affected in any way by Guantanamo or NSA eavesdropping or enemy combatant laws.”

    Unfortunately, this is the especially the problem with the conservative mindset. Years ago I tried to explain to my dad what the problem is with Guantanamo, and arresting people who are U.S. citizens without habeas corpus, by explaining to him that once such laws are passed, they may eventually be used on him and his own. He really couldn’t seem to get past the belief that these sorts of things would only be done to ‘the bad guys’.

  • In the immortal words of Ed Meese, “if a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect” (railing against Miranda)

    That was 1985; no one rioted in the streets against the US Attorney General then (the only one who could give Gonzales a run for the bottom of the list), why should we expect more of society now?

  • Bush’s encroachments on our civil liberties are scarier than any terrorist threat. The chances of any terrorist, particularly an Islamic one, striking any single American personally are minute. But Bush has set up surveilance programs which are an unknown quanity to us citizens. We do not know what the computer algorythm is programmed to seek when it scans phone calls or e-mail communications.

    A person complaining about an overgrown rasperry plant in their backyard could have a file created on them for saying “bush” and “destroy” in the same sentence, or when discussing a bad play by e-mail and saying “Lincoln Center” and “bomb” in close proximity to each other. So the next time a person flies they could be hustled off and detained indefinitely becasue a comuter program has placed them on a terror suspect list. That is a real fear, that our own government now has the ability to makes some huge mistakes involving its own citizens who may be find themselves with out rights to fight against a system just looking for a reason to incarcerate the suspicious, whoever that may be.

  • Yes, the vast majority of us are unassuming when it comes to the prospect that our government would do bad things to us good guys as it is usurping our civil rights right before our eyes. Bush and his ilk have used government to destroy government. He and his ilk have destroyed Iraq in order to save it. He and his ilk have destroyed the sanctity of life. liberty and property inorder to give us (false) security. What was up is now down. What was gray is now black and white. And, what was my country of old is now a nation flirting with legitimizing authoritarianism.

    Yes, it is at this juncture the Democrats need to step up or just shut up! The old unassuming viewpoint is that democratic compromise for the good of the country can still take place. What I have learned over the past 6+ years is that this bunch of authoritarians in the WH don’t, and have not, recognized the same dynamic. There is no democratic compromise available to us at this time because this Bush presidency is not democratic in nature. It will never surrender to legitimate public opinion because it specifically believes it is too puissant to have to do so.

    Any Democrat who wishes to confront this cowardly strategy of painting legitimate opposition as “aiding and abetting the terrorist enemy” will need to take the lead in public demostrations that call this WH to task for its foolduggery. I would proffer that any nationally recognized Democrat who takes such a lead will be recognized in future generations as a truly brave American who was willing to take the first step to take back our nation from the fearmongering interests of the military-industrial complex. -Kevo

  • Anne at #7 nailed it.

    I’m guessing CB has some contacts with a few folks in the DNC somewhere — copy and paste that into an email and send it to everyone on that list STAT!!!

    It’s PERFECT!

    **stands and claps**

  • As Hilzoy noted, it’s an issue of spine.

    Too many Dems don’t have it.

    Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) noted that he’s pushing a bill to restore habeas corpus, but is facing resistance from some of his Democratic colleagues who ask him, “Well, what about the 30-second spots?”

    Well, what about them?

    They can’t do what they did to Max Cleland, not anymore. But Dems do have to have the courage to call bullshit.

  • The sooner they come up with something, the sooner they’ll stop losing. Any suggestions?


    I think the way to go is to go after the base of ALL their arguments. They have no credibility. NONE. All the Dems need to do is underline that fact and provide examples. Lots of examples.

    When they come at us on the terror issue, simply replay a partial clip of their latest BS scare tactic ad, and then knock their freaking heads off:

    “The Republicans told you the Iraq war would be easy, they told you lies about who committed 9/11, they told you the surge would stabilize Iraq, and they told you that they weren’t totally corrupt. They lied us into the Iraq war, they sold us all out to lobbyists, they corrupted the justice system, and they protected polluters and pedophiles. Now they’re telling us to be afraid of (insert BS scarecrow here)? Who do they think will believe them?”

    Go for the throat. They have no credibility, and there’s plenty of examples to prove that they don’t. No argument they make can have an impact if their credibility is forcefully challenged.

  • The fact is that it is hard to craft an inspiring message on these issues.

    The Democrats don’t need to “craft an inspiring message” on these issues. What they need to do is use their votes against these issues. If they don’t do that, why should anyone vote for them in the next election? A report yesterday showed that the Democratic Congress isn’t even held in respect by Democrats — the approval rate is extremely low. I’m sure that’s because the Democrat voting record is so terrible.

    What Democratic legislators don’t seem to realize is that they MUST make a united stand together against the war, against Constitutional violations, and stop trying to figure out “what to say”. What to do is far more critical for the Democratic party.

    America already knows the Bush-game of fear-mongering. When the Democrats echo the message of fear by giving Bush everything he wants, it looks an awful lot as if they’re worse at buying the mongerer’s line than the average American.

  • Anne’s ad would work for people who have the necessary imagination to think that they might somehow run afoul of the Gestapo, but the people the ads need to turn don’t have that. They think the police hardly ever arrest the wrong person.

    Gotta tailor ads to the targets, not to us.

  • “Bush’s encroachments on our civil liberties are scarier than any terrorist threat.”

    See petorado, that where your (and other commeters’) views differ from a majority of Americans’ views. They see the risk of the FISA laws being overly authoritarian, yet if there if is no intent to use them except for the sake of protecting the US from terrorist threats, the American public will allow for the abuses of habeus corpus. Sure the Government could abuse its power and “hustle people off and detain them indefinitely because a computer program has placed them on a terror suspect list.” But up to this point, there been scant evidence of this sort of thing happening.

    So, until the Dems come up with a plan that 1) Offers real alternatives to the current FISA laws which 2) also allow Americans feel safe as they think they are with the current law in place, then my guess is the majorty of folks are willing to forego some of their civil liberties in the meantime.

  • OK, this is an easy one.
    What the Dems need a bit of showmanship & appeal to the lizard brain. Here’s a suggested script:

    –Dark, low, ominous music, set to a dark background–
    A door gets kicked open, and uniformed, jackbooted men rush in and roughly haul out a non-agressive man (would a woman work here?)

    Announcer’s voiceover (dark, serious) –
    “Dictators, tyrants and Kings can arrest and confine their subjects. No one can question their authority, wrong or right. That’s not America!”

    Fade to a town scene, a bright courthouse.

    Announcer’s voiceover (serious, but lighter)
    “Americans have and deserve the best legal system, developed from hundreds of years of experience.
    “We have no Kings or dictators, we have officials who are accountable to us, the citizens of this great country.
    “There are some in this country who have lost hope in the American way, who would prefer a dictator.
    “That’s not America!”

    “Keep American Officials accountable, keep American freedoms.
    Vote Democratic”

    Fade to a flying American flag.

    No policy, no jargon, no thinking, go with the feelings, dammit! That’s what works on the TV.

  • I think what you have to do is make people understand in some way they can relate to, that these laws are not just about “the terrorists,” but about giving the government the sole say-so in what that means, and taking from all of us the power to do anything about it.

    No, we don’t want to give terrorists a free ride – but is eroding and eliminating our basic rights the only way to give the government the tools it needs to fight terrorism? I don’t think so, and I think most people would quickly agree once they realized, in stark terms, just how precarious our freedoms really are.

    We’ve been having this argument for years – because we’ve seen instance after instance of people who appear to be clearly guilty of terrible crimes being set free due to procedural errors or violations of constitutional rights. We all deplore the failure of the system to exact justice in these cases – but the flip side of those cases where the guilty go free is the innocent who are convicted. It happens – look at all the people freed when DNA evidence proved their innocence. Do people really want a system where we will all be presumed guilty, where we will be unable to access legal advice to understand what we are presumed guilty of, where we will never be accorded a hearing or a trial to state the case for our innocence, and be denied access to the evidence against us? Somehow, I doubt it.

    But people – too many of them, in my opinion – go blithely about their daily routines, feeling secure in the knowledge that having not done anything wrong, these new laws and new powers will never affect them. I think they’re wrong, but I think the only way they come to realize that is if you show them in some concrete way that makes the light bulb go on.

  • Hey Anne – they don’t listen to logic, think of Ollie North. It’s OK that he got off.

    IOKIYAR.

    I liked your ad, but it didn’t appeal to the good side. With your script, some of these authoritaian jackasses would be muttering, “he looks guilty to me.”

  • BuzzMon, how sad that you are probably right.

    I pretty much deplore the fact that we seem to be reducing all of this to which side has the best PR, but if they’re going to be out there making people think the only way to get the terrorists is to wipe out basic rights, somehow people have to understand that if the terrorists have no rights, neither do they – and I think people are still of the belief that the only people who could be subjected to being disappeared are people who are guilty of something.

  • As Thom Hartman said today, the current FISA law allows the government to invade your house.

    That should be simple enough and scary enough to get all Americans on board for change.

  • “When they came for the Jews, I did not speak up because I was not Jewish…

    Yeah, Godwin’s law has been repealed (or suspended).

    A real Christian would remember “That you do to the least of us, you do to me…”

    But that would be the jesus of the Sermon on the Mount. Remember “Blesed are the peacemakers..”

    And Commander Codpiece smirks “Yeah, I got me a peacemaker. A Colt Peacemaker, Heh heh. Here, pull my finger.”

  • I thought Anne’s idea in #7 was good: Fight fear with fear. Mistrust of government runs deep in the American psyche, our entire system of government is founded upon it. Tap into that and you might be onto something.

    Or how about something in Early American, perhaps: fife and drum music, founding fathers, Revolutionary War heroes, patriots who fought and died to pass on the fundamental civil rights to you (the viewer) that you’re so eager to give away now, as you cower under your bed quivering every time you see someone with a beard. (IOW, fight fear with shame.)

  • Mistrust of government runs deep in the American psyche, our entire system of government is founded upon it. Tap into that and you might be onto something.

    True enough: Wingers hate government.

    But they have to be afraid that they could be targets, too. Perhaps harkening back to the previous Hillary thread (laugh).


  • gg: Unfortunately, this is the especially the problem with the conservative mindset. Years ago I tried to explain to my dad what the problem is with Guantanamo, and arresting people who are U.S. citizens without habeas corpus, by explaining to him that once such laws are passed, they may eventually be used on him and his own. He really couldn’t seem to get past the belief that these sorts of things would only be done to ‘the bad guys’.

    Perhaps you should explain to him that the “bad guys” are not Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. The bad guys are liberals/Democrats like you; have been all along. Ask him how he would feel if/when you are whisked off to Guantanamo. Would he still think you were wrong?


  • Anne: – and I think people are still of the belief that the only people who could be subjected to being disappeared are people who are guilty of something.

    … which I believe is the exact opposite of reality. Our society has been an exception to the rule, but history has shown that its often those guilty of greed, theft, lies, murder and all the other devices humans use to “get ahead”, who wind up at the top and make the laws. Under “authority” like this, it is often the innocent who are first to be executed or “disappeared”. We should always remind those on the right just what happened to their hero Jesus.

  • JTK said: “The bad guys are liberals/Democrats like you; have been all along. Ask him how he would feel if/when you are whisked off to Guantanamo. Would he still think you were wrong?”

    That’s the problem; certain people just can’t imagine that what you say is true. I tried to frame it in terms of our Ukrainian descent. It is not unimaginable that some group of radical Ukrainians might in the future act out against the U.S. (it’s not the most stable country). How would my dad feel if the government suddenly started eavesdropping on all of his relatives, and bringing them in for ‘interviews’? If the government started treating him as “guilty until proven innocent”? He just blissfully seemed to think that this couldn’t possibly happen, though it has been happening in the Arab community.

    A lot of right-wingers (like my dad) have unlimited faith in some sort of supernatural being called “America” which is always right and never makes mistakes. The notion that the government is in fact run by flawed and petty people who need checks and balances violates their romantic (and religious) view of the country.

  • I wrote: “The notion that the government is in fact run by flawed and petty people who need checks and balances violates their romantic (and religious) view of the country.”

    I should add, I’m not trying to sound completely defeatist about waking people up to reality. I just suspect it will be difficult, because many people seem to be very attached to their dream of infallible, incorruptible leadership.

    I do like BuzzMon’s idea for a commercial. Though it somehow seems like cheating, D’s will probably keep losing as long as they’re attached to taking a completely logical and rational approach to politics. Unfortunately, most people in the country don’t think that way. (I remember the NASCAR driver in 2004 who appeared on CNN and said, “I’m votin’ for Bush ’cause he lives on a ranch in Texas, and Kerry lives in a mansion in Nantucket!”)

  • I believe the correct answer to “Destroy habeas or we might all die,” is:

    “What, are you a whiney-ass scared little baby? Grow up! This is AMERICA. We crushed the Nazis and the Japanese empire AT THE SAME TIME. Why? Because we are a nation of strong, proud people who love our liberty, and we weren’t about to let some thugs march US off to secret camps.

    Now because a bunch of sneaky, cave-dwelling towelheads got in a lucky shot, you expect us to giv up what makes America great because you’re a wittle scared they might get you?

    Run home to your mommy, and stop bothering us grown-ups with your whining, crybaby.”

    Don’t bother responding to the rational argument. That’s not the point. We must counter the irrational, emotional argument with a stronger, prouder emotional argument.

  • Anne & Buzzmon….send Move On and ACLU some of your ideas….we need those PSAs out there.

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