More Republican Fear-Mongering

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I completely agree. In fact, I find it odd that anyone would try to include the counter-culture movement of the 1960s to this "bleeding heart liberalsim". The primary problem with drawing the comparison, is you can rarely use the term "bleeding heart liberal" as a compliment. It's almost always used as an insult. The only way I can see anyone not using it as an insult is if you fail to see a difference between the bleeding heart and the vanilla liberal.

Exactly right. If people were naturally good, then the less well off would already be receiving all the help they could want.

As Ragusa pointed out, Polanski was an example. The larger point that was apparently missed was that KSM wouldn't be nearly the first person extradited from a foreign country to the US to face criminal charges in a federal court.

 

Of course "bleeding heart" is an insult. During my youth the term was primarily used by hawkish individuals (we had a lot of them in Arizona -- Goldwater was our senator still) to describe anyone who wanted to take money away from the military and space programs to fund any social reform. This included the "counter-culture movement" of the sixties whose chants of 'make love not war' infuriated many of the extremely conservative religious individuals I was raised around -- hippies were definitely 'bleeding hearts' to the conservatives who used the label as an insult (especially when the hippies could vote).

In my youth welfare, food stamps and unemployment were hand outs and only the most lazy would take advantage of such a thing (a lot of people seemed to ignore the fact that most of our married military were on food stamps). The primary advice given to someone on welfare or unemployed was "get a job" -- and not very politely either.

"Bleeding hearts" allowed such atrocities as 'welfare Cadillacs' and fought against death row. It was a wide and sweeping definition used in much the same way "unpatriotic" is used today and "commie" was used in the fifties.

My comments were a parody of the atmosphere during the heyday of the term 'bleeding heart liberal'. It was stereotypical satire that fell as flat as an SNL skit from the 90's, but then comedy must have common roots to work....

 

* That's ironic because Goldwater described himself as a "liberal" by the end of his political career. *

Two things. First, that seems more of philosophical statement than it is a poltical one, at least to me. Maybe it was different back then. Second, what kind of religion is opposed to "peace and love?" I thought they were both noble goals, or states of being for humanity? I know there was a big anti-war movement because of the Vietnam War. I guess much like those who are opposed to the war in Iraq, could be termed "liberal terrorist sympathizers" (but that's just political hackery and stupid). But I can't imagine anyone claiming that "make love not war," is a bad idea - philosophically.



Edit:

Hippies were not allowed to vote? No wonder they protested so much.

* I did want to frame that comment within is proper context:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

 

Well, hippies can't vote if they are underage... which is what T2B meant, I think.

 

The 26th amendment was ratified in 1971. I can remember a lot of adults lamenting 'those bleeding heart hippies will vote and ruin our country' -- instead, the adults elected Nixon. The 18-21 year old vote just wasn't an issue in the election, it seems young people back then (and now) simply didn't care much about politics.

Edit: I didn't answer a comment from Chandos -- first, philosophy and politics are in bed together on many issues today. It should not be surprising to note it was like that in the 60's and 70's as well. On your second point I've found, in general, that many religious groups in America want freedom to practice their beliefs as they see fit, but are quite willing to deny the same right to those they disagree with. So while the basic ideas of peace and love are cornerstones of most religious beliefs, methods to demonstrate those ideas are not universally accepted (especially the massive "love-in's" that were nearly orgies -- at least that's what I heard from adults at the time). The "peace and love" espoused by the counter culture movement had aspects that were "morally degrading and devalued basic virtues" (sentiment of the time, not my personal beliefs).

 

T2B is right - prior to 1971 you had to be 21 to vote. Which was kind of dumb, considering the age for entering the military was 18, and that there was a draft, so you didn't even have a choice. In fact, I think the military argument was the main point for lowering the age. If you were old enough to be sent to a foreign country and die for your country, at least you should have the ability to vote for the elected officials that authorize the use of the military.

 

Well, that was my point regarding the hippie movement and politics, thank you. However, it seems to me that a lot of hippies were in the range of 21 years anyway (some older, some younger). I always thought of the hippie movement as an outgrowth of the Beat Generation. But I could be wrong, since I was 5 years old in 1969. What I will say, is that there seemed to be a strong anti-war movement among those young people who were going to be drafted. I'm not sure if those war protestors were "hippies," or people who just didn't want to be drafted. I think that both movements probably converged at some point.