Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

One problem with discourse between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives have zero understanding of what liberals actually believe. The modern liberal movement has largely developed from a merger of traditional liberal thought with a reaction to the authoritarianism and denial of science and reason by the right wing in recent years. Conservatives, who tend to be mislead on so many subjects, tend to believe the distortions of liberal thought promoted by the right wing noise machine and comments about liberals from the right tend to have virtually nothing to do with actual liberal thought.

A perfect example of this comes from conservative blogger Dan Riehl via Alan Colmes:

I’m not sure I quite understand this, given that cost is so important as a burden to taxpayers when it comes to health care. If Democrats want so badly to abort babies because of it, why are we bothering with someone who has a broken neck and back at 69? It sounds to me like she’s pretty well used up and has probably been living off the taxpayers for plenty of years to begin with. Aren’t we at least going to get a vote on it?

“Sen. Reid’s daughter Lana Reid Barringer, 48, who was driving the mini-van, and his wife, Landra G. Reid, 69, a passenger, were both injured. Landra suffered a broken back and a broken neck in the crash; Barringer suffered minor injuries, Sen. Reid’s office said Thursday.”

I realize her crook of a husband and his pals in Congress have excluded themselves from the mess they’re going to compel everyone else to join, but we’re still paying the bills, are we not? I don’t see that she’s worth it at this point, frankly. I can’t recall her ever doing anything for me.

Come on, Harry – do your civic duty. The nation’s broke and counting on you guy. Pull the plug and get back to work. And don’t bill us for a full day today, either. This is no time to be sloughing off. Air freight her home, you can bury her during recess on your own time and dime. Or are you going to bill us for that, too?

Besides the thought process here being pretty much the opposite of liberal belief, I must also point out that the common conservative talking point that Congress has excluded themselves from health care reform is outright false. The truth is that one of the key points of health care reform is to allow everyone in the country to have the same type of health care plan as those in Congress have.

As for the vile thought process here which is falsely attributed to liberals, Kathy Kattenburg sums this up by noting at The Moderate Voice :

Obviously, Dan Riehl was trying to prove a point when he wrote that if Democrats support abortion, they should ask themselves, “Isn’t it time to euthanize [Harry] Reid’s wife?”. I’m just not sure he fully understands which point he actually proved.

Update: Charles Johnson cites Dan’s post as a reason for why he left the right.