This isn't really a "good by cruel world" diary. I'm actually going to join the cruel world, rejecting the groupthink of the netroots. It feels good, if a bit scary. I've been posting here on and off (mostly on) since the 2004 primaries. I've been through Deaniacs, election conspiracies, purges, flame wars, Armando and Maryscott O'Conner. I've never been a major player, just a second tier member of the chorus.  It has sometimes been fun, often infuriating, occasionally inspiring. But it's time to get real again. There is a whole world out there where a battle is going on between Democrats and Republicans, not between Pelosi and Reid and the netroots. There are local elections that matter that aren't being promoted here. There is a very real, if vastly overblow, terrorist threat. There is a "fake" war that is a real tragedy. There is a budding economic crisis. There are gardens to plant, and dogs to play with, and love to make. I used to want the netroots to rule the world. Now I really hope they don't. It's time to go.

A diary that spent several hours on the rec list last night claimed that Clinton supporters disenfranchised voters in New Mexico by hiding ballot boxes  

http://www.dailykos.com/... .  

This is simply not true. The information showing that it is not true was on the same web site linked to in that article, two days before the diarist wrote this diary. The diary war front paged by hundreds of people, even though there was no support for the allegations in the dairy.  A simple Google search turned up counter information. This lie has already spread through the blogosphere and been referenced in other locations on Daily Kos. Here is the story.

The flood in New Orleans is a very good example of why the republicans shouldn't be allowed to shrink government until it is small enough to be taken out and drowned in the bathtub.  It didn't have to be this way.  Maybe we couldn't stop the hurricane, but we could have shored up the levees and the pumps and taken other actions to prevent the massive flooding that is currently occurring.  Why do I believe this?  Because my home was saved by big government from a flood that would have been a lot like this one.

I was reading the lengthy interview of Tom Delay by various Washington Times Editors and writers, and one paragraph seemed more over the top than the others.  I mentioned it to a friend, and she said "Hey- it's the Bart Simpson Defense".  I did a bit of web surfing, and found she was right:

I've always had a problem with the abortion issue.   My problem is that "abortion" is not really about aborting fetuses.  The issue is much more general: control of our bodies.  As a society, we recognize that individuals have control over choices regarding their bodies.  We have the right to refuse medical treatment, even if we will die without it.  We have the right to refuse to allow our organs to be used for transplants, even if someone else will die as a result of that decision.  We have the right to procreate, even if we don't have the ability to care for a child or are certain to pass along major genetic defects to that child.  (continued)

As you've probably heard, the republican party gave it's members a handout with talking points and information on privatization (sorry, "Personal Accounts") to "save social security".  I downloaded it via "Talking Points Memo".

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_01_30.php#004600

Part of the presentation includes sample speeches, which address specific issues that people have related to privatization.  One of the major problems they have is convincing people that there is a crisis, given that we have been paying into a massive trust fund that should fund social security debts well into the middle of this century.  I believe that the way they've dealt with this issue is a serious Achilles heel that we should address.  (Continued in extended entry)

I was browsing the Free Republic, and had a minor revelation.  A lot of people on the right seem to feel that Iraq is part of the "War On Terror", and I've always assumed that this was because they had been led to believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.  They, on the other hand, think that we are deluded because we can't see that Iraq is central to the War. But I've come to believe that the difference in how we see the war is not based on their ignorance of facts, but on a basic difference in how we see the Islamic world.  

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