Will the Right Eventually Openly Dump the Constitution?

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If they get rid of that, then there is room for all kinds of liberty being destoryed and nation to be in ruins within itself.

You mean like the Manning case? Where Obama has been at minimal complicit in his torture but most likely is giving a much more active level of consent to his treatment and conditions.

That would be one example, yes. Left identified politicians also seem to have an affinity for infringing on freedom of speech (hate speech laws, speech codes) and are just as committed to all the abuses in the name of drug prohibition and fighting terrorism as their erstwhile opponents on the right, among other things.

Just a fun tidbit to shake things up; did y'all people know that the infamous Koch brothers gave 20 million dollars to the ACLU to fight the PATRIOT act? Kind of defies easy characterization, doesn't it? I can't imagine there's all that much profit to be had there, maybe they did it because it was the right thing to do. On the subject of the PATRIOT act anyway, I believe that puts the Koch's to the left of most of the Democrats in Congress with the exception of Dennis Kucinich.

The OP's title for this thread is just one more reason that I am tempted to cry, "A plague a' both your houses!" Why is it that the political environment is so poisonous that partisans on the right and the left can routinely rubbish each others' patriotism, intelligence and sanity?

I don't agree with many of the positions of the so-called right wing. I believe that there is an important role for government in a few key areas of social policy. I believe that progressive taxation and some limited redistribution of wealth is necessary for the well ordering of a contemporary society. I believe that "peace, order and good government" is achievable.

I will defend my political views against all comers--but I will not pretend that my arguments will "completely demolish" my oppontent's arguments. I will work assiduously to see where we might find common ground, tempering my fiscal conservative/social liberal insticts to find a broader consensus.

I don't disrespect the right, nor those who believe in its policies. I believe that you can be perfectly patriotic, intelligent and sane and disagree with me on all of these issues. I believe that we can have an intelligent, constructive discussion about public policy choices.

I may agree with the policy choices of people on the left--but I will not agree with the tactics that suggest that the best approach to achievign those choices is to demonize those who oppose them.

It seems that we are engaged in an endless round of, "play the man, not the ball." And it is not to our credit. At best it is an insult to the intelligence of those who take an interest in the political life of their society.

Another point that is in the Republican's favor is that they have been courting the tea party instead of demonizing it, and has even been open to tea partiers participating in the primary process. That is partially so they can consolidate the opposition to the wacky Democrats rather than splitting the opposition vote.

You won't have any damn mutiny if the war is worth fighting.

Yes, President Obama seems like a thoughtful, liberal-minded man, so it's puzzling how his administration has handled Manning's case.

If you believe that the GOP is acting in a welcoming, benevolent fashion, I have a bridge that you might be interested in buying.

It's a cold war between the GOP and the Tea Party. Establishment Republicans are not "courting" the Tea Party, they are giving the Tea Party plenty of rope in the hope that the Tea Partiers will metaphorically hang themselves.

I don't thing this is "in the Republican's favour" so much as it is the ugly, dirty reality of partisan politics. The GOP is in a two front war. Since they can't destroy the left, they have to destroy the right.

Here's a clue: It's an act. Obama is not liberal-minded and he is most certainly not thoughtful; at least not with regards to thoughts of the public and human rights. It's pretty obvious when you actually pay attention to his wording and semantics...he said he'd close gitmo and what not but how he talked about it lacked any passion or commitment and lacked even the actual thought of action in what words he chose for it.

They threw you guys a bone with Obama, and it didn't take long before everyone realized he's just an aluminum foil wrapped turd. You can wrap a turd in aluminum foil, and it'll look shiny, but it still stinks, and most importantly, it's still a turd

There are a few Marxist academics left and others in the United States who may throw their support to the Democratic Party, but there is no significant, organized socialist movement in the U.S. today and hasn't been for decades. The Democrats' activist base, mostly liberals and progressives of various stripes, are not socialists and reject Marxist prescriptions. You will not find many a group of liberals gathered to discuss the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its replacement with proletarian rule. Democrats are not seeking to turn businesses into worker-run syndicates; they are not trying to turn private business over to state control. Providing mechanisms to increase the percentage of individuals with health insurance through the same existing health-management corporations is categorically not socialism; it's some government/industry amalgam, but that's not socialism.

The Tea Party has drawn from threads of conservative, libertarian, and also right-wing reactionary ("States' Rights" goes to the Antebellum South) rhetoric (I nearly typed thought) that have been around since long before the Tea Party existed as such and since long before Ron Paul campaigned for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. These people are mostly the same conservative base that's been supporting the Republican Party for years; what's new is the organizational tactics, which they borrowed from New Left protesters from the 1960s, along with a dominant party line coming from Fox News (and Rush Limbaugh as in years past).

They are different from the Republican establishment in that they've pushed the party to take a hard-right, uncompromising stance.

Obama seems to be a pragmatist, carefully weighing the political fall-out of any option he may take. He seemed to have a hint of idealism to him and a bit of liberal-mindedness from his cosmopolitan upbringing, but I'd say he also has a conservative temperament in some respects: cautious, deliberative. His conservative temperament combined with his desire to reach compromise, a middle ground, may be why he is so enamored with understanding the Right and winning them over. He wants to move to a long-term, "postpartisan" goal, and apparently that includes appearing tough on national security.

Neant, there's no use trying to get far-right drones to understand what socialism and Marxism are, and how they differ from social democracy, which itself is vastly to the left of the US Democratic Party.

The polling on a great variety of issues actually show the American public to support policies farther left than what the Democrats in government are willing to promote.

Obama is about as pragmatist as Michael Moore and Keith Olberman.

I think it's a bit shortsighted to pretend that Obama is not a pragmatist.

Obama is in guy who lives in the White House. Idealists don't make it very far in US elections.

Obama's signature is on health care legislation (for better or for worse). Idealists don't get much traction in Congress.

Obama is busy talking up the only two Republicans that seem to have the best chance of beating him with independent and centrist voters (Romney and Huntsman). Is an Obama "endorsement" a poisoned chalice? When Obama talks up Romney's individual mandate in Massachusetts, it seems calculated to make the blood boil in members of the libertarian wing of the Republican party (can everyone say, "Romneycare?") When Obama's chief of staff compliment's Huntsman on the "closeness with which he worked with the President," that seems to be sending a message.

This looks to me to be very, very pragmatic.

Yes, I think back to Obama and the Democrats' adept handling of the 2010-2011 lame-duck session of Congress and how much legislative progress they made. More recently, I see the Obama administration threw progressives a bone by deciding to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Just as the Left's support starts to ebb, he throws something their way to keep them, if not totally satisfied, willing to continue their support. He throws platitudes about Ronald Reagan and the free market to the Right. I guess politics is mostly about strategic calculation of bases of support, but I sometimes do wonder where Obama's inner idealist really wants to take the country. His willingness to continue many of the Bush policies I most detested (Guantanamo and the indefinite detention of prisoners, for example) makes me wonder how he thinks that fits in with America the Ideal.