you make a lot of good points. your scenario is that the right has moved to claim a lot of stuff that has traditionally been the domain of the middle or the left. but i also think the middle has moved to get in bed with the right because they're fed up witht the left. it's been simmering and simmering. i'm not saying it's right (in the moral sense of the word now) but i do think that every time a church-going good decent moderate democratic family (oh the adjectives!) in nebraska sees the gay pride parade from san francisco on the news, they think somewhere deep "oh (the exasperating kind),those fucking liberals, how am I gonna explain this to my kid?" they think the same thing about affirmative action and busing and when their kid's christmas play is cancelled because it's not politically correct to have a "christmas" play. they're pissed at the left and a certain court in mass. - right as they may have been - did as much to lose this for kerry and the democrats as anything. so, there is a revolution going on. you're right. but i'm not as sure as you as to what to do about it. i'm officially despairing today. i like the family in kansas. I got no quarrel with people marrying whoever they want to marry. where's the middle ground? is there middle ground?

I just thought of this and I don't know if it is right but I will try. The middle ground exists but it cannot exist on its own. In Canada, the centre gets a wacking share of the left and a bit of the right to survive under the Liberal Party. In the UK, Blair has made the centre and the moderate left a bullwork. The centre cannot live on its own.

so do you play to the fringes in this country. that's what howard dean did. it's what bush means when he says "take care of the base." are we ever going to get the opportunity to talk to each other? or is it open warfare from here on out, all limbaugh and idiot hippies crowing about halibuton while they slide supreme court appointees under the radar? we're reaching some pessimistic conclusions. i need a drink.

This plan would never work because you would alienate the 18-34 age groups, the ones that have grown up expecting everything easy, and right now. 2016 is just too far away. Leadership is the issue I would have liked to hear you address in your assessment. The Democratic leadership qualities did not suit the times, or the office of the President, in my opinion. There’s something about a take-charge, decisive, positive, inspirational leader that rubs Democrats the wrong way. Why is that? How do you explain Clinton’s success in all this? I can’t. He was one of the worst examples yet of moral values. I guess some of the interns would argue for Clinton’s charisma. Certainly he was not a great leader like Reagan. Clinton was a good speaker and able to connect on a personal level, but not what I would call decisive or take-charge. Yet, he was able to appeal to the undecided and he made 2 terms. Kerry was stiff and aloof, Gore the same. Both failed to achieve. And both followed the script laid out for leaders of the Left. Perhaps the Left needs to embrace some of the qualities and characteristics of successful leaders from the Right, and combine them with those used by Clinton. Or, at least admit to the importance of some of the qualities of leadership that are valued by the Right. Trudeau fit the bill, and he was a successful Liberal. I see some of the best of both sides in him. In the end, I feel the Democrats just did not have a quality field from which to choose a winner. And, that field was all over the map, with candidates assimilating successful political platforms of their rivals during the primaries, and after.

You only talk to the fringe that you can co-opt. The future minority is only necessary for placation, like Alberta and the party with the revolving name. Once you placate them, you start to chip away - label them and demean the label. Objectify and diminish. This is exactly what the Christian right has done.<p>The trouble is they do it as a calling, they think that they are doing God's work. They may be right. They are not, however, exclusive in that calling. <p>History needs reviewing to determine what factor caused the end of revivals in the past. They tend to come about during times of technological shifting. The Erie Canal in the 1820s and 30s caused a boom of evangelizing. Today's crop are the same, just radio and TV creations. They will die off when radio and TV dies. But they never will because they are cheap media.<p>They also thrive in the end times. That is a toughy. You have a fear these are the end times. You are being drawn in but are fighting. You need to create a new centre that can fend off the concepts of the other.

Wayne, you are talking about followers. You think that Karl Rove believes in the integrity of the message in the hearts of those who voted or only the fact that they voted. Just to be clear, this is a discussion about a means to an end. We are not talking about best principles but viable ones. Remember also that in 2016 the 20 year old is 32 - kids, wife, mortgage. You have to create the message now that will appeal to them. That is what the fundamentalist right did and has to be mimicked to tell the other truth. Ditch the rainbow coalition except keep most of the content. Did moral relativism except for the principles.

Here is an email I wrote in response to a kind conservative correspondent of mine who wrote by email:<blockquote class="smalltext">I disagree about the conservatives but that is no surprise. There has, as you say, been a new assertion of conservatism that is cultural and that is what I think the liberal world has to attack. It is difficult as part of the new conservatism is an assumption of the moral high ground. It is something that the liberal world needs to mirror. It is unacceptable to me that the "hands-up" to compete illustration has been succesfully framed and placed in the cultural
mind when it is a denial of charity and the reality of obstruction caused by racism or other forms of discrimination - with when abstracted abstracted is a denial of both faith and fact. But that is the success of the new conservatism - it hides its immorality so well. As you say, the democrats have to assert who the conservatives really are - but that is not who the conservatives say they are and it is not who the Michael Moores say they are. Something new has to be framed that can compete with the illusion that new conservatism has so successfully crafted over the decades.</blockquote>What I mean is the new liberal message has to be framed positively and based on an assertion of absolute morality if it is to compete. The culture has a taste for that now and the beast must be fed. One now fringe concept that might be returned to the cultural core is "love they neighbour".

I love this 'far left' business. Howard Dean, a fiscal conservative who thought the war against Iraq was a mistake, is 'far left.' In Canada that's just normal. Even Albertans think that. Far left is Derrida or Marxism not Howard Dean.

By the way, the left stands for something already, it's just having a mid life crisis. The left is for helping people who are unfortunate rather than stomping on them or telling them it's their own fault. The left in Canada is also for minding its own business when it comes to other lifestyles. The right in Canada is a mixed group but much of it is no longer socially conservative so it is both socially liberal (i.e. pro gay and pro marijuana) and economically liberal (i.e. dog eat dog). The most well known modern advocate of this view is Ayn Rand. In the US things are different the right is largely Protestant and evangelical so socially conservative. But it's still dog eat dog on the economic front. The left in the states is quite similar to the right in Canada which is why people like Clinton and Belinda Stronach are friends.

That is true Lisa that the left stands for things but those things have to be woven into a story and fixed on a foundation on constitutional principle, religious article and economic theory. The conservative economic theory is a wasteland, for example, but has cornered the market in its own analysis. The left, by having a fragmented story, can't budge it off the high ground even though it "no tax / big spend" heart makes no sense.

That ... and Belinda's a hottie.

A good friend of mine - a Republican in Central Florida - was overjoyed when Kerry was nominated. "Look at that," he said. "They played right into our hands. A rich, pampered Democrat from the North-east. The nightmare of every Southerner and Mid-Westerner."

As much as the Christian Right was a significant factor, I think part of what happened was division along regional resentments. Not hard to look at the map and see where Kerry's base of strongest support was.

It's been close to half a century since the US elected a President from the North-East. Our equivalent? Name the last elected Prime Minister from Toronto ...

Fair enough but this is not an election post-mortem thread but one about communicating a political theory. As a giver of messages, Nils, how would you play Karl Rove and shift North American culture to the left over the next 20 years?

What bothers me is that no one in the states seems to want to vote on the issues. They're always voting with their gut: I don't like the look of them there fellows from the North East is not a well thought out political strategy.

But, should we demand a certain political IQ from the electorate? Especially when we put on stage representatives of either party who know no more about trickle-down-economics, fiscal conservativism or corporate welfare then the mash-pit? If the parties want or demand more from the electorate, they better sharpen their own pencils first and set a higher standard. Stop the hype using pop-culture. Would that necessarily transulate into votes and victory? I doubt it. I think I understood myself better last night after five(5) big glasses of wine.

"but those things have to be woven into a story and fixed on a foundation on constitutional principle, religious article and economic theory. The conservative economic theory is a wasteland, for example, but has cornered the market in its own analysis. The left, by having a fragmented story, can't budge it off the high ground even though it "no tax / big spend" heart makes no sense."

Very interesting post, Al. As we sit here in Canada and cannot even comprehend the mindset that would allow a sane rational person to vote for Bush. Hell, I bet some of my relatives even voted for Bush and they are educated, sane, intelligent, community-minded, middle class folks. But, you're right, the republicans have woven a largely fictional myth that "liberals" are bad. And the worst part is that the democrats have let it happen. In political discourse, they have defended their policy positions, have defended their ideals, but have not responded directly to the attacks and have not directly attacked the obvious short-comings of their opponents in a comprehensive way. Kerry was easy pickin's: Sure, his nuanced positions on the complex issues were rational and well-thought out, but all you have to do to attack him is say: "Are those positions nuanced or his he flip-flopping? Just like a liberal, he can't make up his mind."

In the era of TV sound-bites, nobody has time for a complex explanation of voting patterns on Senate legislative history. You have about 8 seconds to make a point, so you gotta hit them hard and, as you say, take the moral high ground. For example: "The republicans are putting our country deep into debt with their economic policies. German bankers and Japanese mortgage companies own more of America than we do. The democrats don't believe in 'tax & spend' anymore, we believe in a balanced budget. We believe in America. Look at our record and then look at theirs." The moral high ground in America always relates to American vs. un-American.

What really amuses me is how the American righties have made being religiously conservative "American" and, by extension, the imposition of these "American" values as good. The idea of individual rights has been forgotten. It is sad because individual rights is America's great gift to democracy and the World. The democrats have to hit back on individual rights. Anytime people want to restrict gay marriage or abortions or what have you, democrats have play the individual rights card: Live and let live. Something like: "Sure, I'm a liberal when it comes to a woman's right to choose, but you know, Lincoln was a liberal, he wanted black people to be free too. Washington was a liberal, he wanted America to be free. I guess you don't want a free America? How un-American is that?"

Part of how the Liberals in Canada got such a grip on power and sent the conservatives to the fringes was that they successfully took over half of the traditional conservative agenda: Fiscal Conservatism. I don't know of a Liberal or a person under 40 who doesn't believe in balancing the governmental books (okay except for when any of such hold elected office in PEI!!! ;)). The democrats have to do the same thing in the US: Take away part of the righties agenda.

Let me end by saying I find the whole "left-right" thing dwindling in its usefulness when democrats are balancing budgets and republicans are curtailing civil rights and china is a free-market powerhouse and the netherlands is a hotbed of racial tension. a better way to view politics is not "left-right" but "authoritarian vs. anti-authoritarian." but that's the libertarian in me talking again....

Very good post Al, and some very good responses. Very thought provoking and thoughtful.

Just let me add my two cents: I know we're not doing a post mortem on the election, but let me just point out that the exit polls (I know, I know - but trust them on this one) showed that those who voted for Bush, 80%+ did so on the "moral values issue". This would suggest that in "middle America" as a whole and not just in the "Christian right" (and it real is "middle" of America - lop off the North east and California), this is the issue above all others, that matters most.

The difficulty I see the left has (as you, portland and others have pointed out) is appealing to the fiercely independent "middle" America's moral values. Short of a 30s style depression, it may no longer ever be again just "the economy stupid" in future elections.

This difficulty arises from the inablility of the left to ever be able to convince or persuade, or coerce "middle America" into the belief that there is a secular moral orthodoxy that exists "independently" of a person's own personal moral and/or religious beliefs, and this secular morality should govern all public affairs. This would seem to be the left's "moral core of liberty" that you refer to in your first post.

These voters, it would seem, see this position of the left as morally bankrupt and anti-democratic and, perhaps, coercive. While there can be some common ground (separation of church and state etc.), there are certain wedge issues that the left can never bridge, such as abortion. These voters believe that they should have a say on these issues, and the right to vote for a candidate who supports their views.

The left you seem to support, states they should not have such a choice - that such important issues should not be subject to "majority rule" or the "democratic process". To make this a fact, the left needs to turn these wedge issues into fundamental "human rights" issues, something which is possible in Canada (with an activist judiciary and the Charter), but impossible in the US (with its amend. process and elected/appointed/confirmed judiciary).

So, without the force of "the law", the left is stuck with trying to articulate to these voters why, for instance, it is wrong to allow a referendum on approving gay marriage (as was just done, and defeated, in 18 States, or allowing the Sup. Ct. to overturn Roe v. Wade. Kerry, for instance, had considerable difficulty with the abortion issue, and there is no doubt that it hurt him and the Dems. because of his failure to articulate clearly why his personal beliefs on this issue, should not inform and guide his public actions.

I would suggest (ie. similar to portland's comment on the "gay parade") that unless the LEFT (not the right) is willing to moderate it's views, and accept and articulate that clearly there are MORAL LIMITS on what it touts as this "secular rights-based morality", it will never appeal to "middle" America.

Good responses, guys. The focus is the effectiveness of a unifying myth in the best sense of the word. Much of the myth of the right is correct. But remember the title of this thread. There are alternative truths. More than one path. But each path to be effective has to have a story that makes sense. Right now in both Canada and the US, the right has a more unified story. In Canada, the story does not win because whatever the unity, the elements of the story are not being bought. In the US, for cultural reasons they are being bought. Those cultural reasons may be quite vlaid as well. In the US, however, if the left is to move it must make their tale compelling and to do so have to honestly evaluate its content.<p>Interestingly, they have a trump card they are not playing - Jesus. The faith based theory of the right in the US is largely Old Testament stuff. Jesus, as we all know, was a socialist freak-show. The stories are there and ought to be adopted. This will challenge the finrges of the left but not all. Moderate Muslims in the US recognize Jesus as a prophet and are big on both the welfare state and fiscal conservatism, two things the right have abandoned. I would argue they have largely abandoned the Gospel expect the bits about getting one's own ass in heaven. I think I will make a separate post soon about this content of the story but for now the idea is the left needs to recreate a valid story about it self and start selling it.

PS - Wayne, it's "mosh-pit" not "mash-pit". "Eminem" not "M+M". Spot the guy from PEI.

SayNay: What a load of "rightist" rubbish. In your post, you are purveying the exact deceit that the righties have perpetrated for these last few decade that has led them to control the political agenda in America. I won't get into what the definition of morality is or if the idea of morality can really exist in the public realm and not ethics only. You and the American right create and use loaded terms like "fundamental human rights" and "wedge issues" in order to malign respect for individual civil rights founded in America and essential for the rule of law and democracy. What the democrats need to do is convince the "silent majority" that, once you foist your own "morality" on some one else, you are sliding down the slippery slope of authoritarianism and also you are destroying the great American principles such as religious freedom, and the right to the pursuit of happiness unimpeded by state interference. "We hold these truths to be self-evident...."

Nope

Doesn't work anymore.

"Love THY neighbour as thyself!" ;)

Wayne, so are you saying you must be stingy with lovin' yourself.

Hans, how would you recharacterize that comment as a positive statement about what must be in the new liberal story? What you are saying is that there are constitutional elements that are being ignored in practice and even, I would think, denegrated in the myth of the right. <p>Judical independence is a clear one for me. SayNay and Wayne are quite correct in pointing out their believe in majoritarianism. The problem is that majoritarianism is often in contradiction with the constitution. They are advocating undermining the constitution. I would say that is consistent with the right in both Canada and the USA.

I think secular morality has an older and more solid incarnation than does Christian faith based morality especially since contemporary Christianity is very modern -- very 'industrial revolution' while certain elements of egalitarian justice are at least as old as Plato. I have to say that as leftists we should try to keep the things that are beneficial and leave aside the elements that are destructive and try not to give up more than we're gaining. I felt that this was the problem with political correctness. A lot of people thought we should make a lot of rules about the way people should talk and stuff in order to safeguard the rights of minorities and women, I usually felt that where speech was concerned #1 most people are more or less equal and #2 it was a case where ideals were too big and the actual issues were comparatively small. So people were combating racism or sexism by saying no one could use the words cunt or even black person because of the social justice implications while elsewhere in the world people were starving or being hacked to death with machetes.

I think we should be for individual rights to the extent that no one is harmed. That does not mean that I think that everyone should have biometric identity cards in the name of security. But when thousands are poor it is not someone's right to hog all the meat even if they've 'earned' it by being a clever business person. So societal values are important too. I don't think we have to ground that in religion either. We need a level of justice, but not too much justice because with too much justice you get political correctness.

I also think a lot of this soul searching has to do with the fact that baby boomers are aging and they're wondering where their causes have gone to. Where are the ideals? Where is the vision? Where is the mobilizing force of our time. I was reading Rex Murphy one day and he was talking about how in the past there were great brave people like Martin Luther King and now all we have is Kerry and Bush. I guess the reply to that is that in the past we had lynchings and segregation (well not we, but the US did) and women really were barefoot and pregnant and undervalued and maybe that's why 'we' had heroes. Now we have waste management and recycling. I think we should stop navel gazing and do something about problems in other countries. I think that would help us to gain some perspective.

That is a good point, Lisa, that has to be in the myth/story. We do live in the socialist eqalitarian state that was fought for from 1760 to 1960. The right is attacking that by co-opting our language. That will make a great genisis.<p>I think my plan now is to confirm that the unifying myth is required and suggest in a next post the required elements or key themes and then work on each theme separately.

Don't get me wrong though. I think there are serious issues that need to be addressed. There are poor people in Canada. I shudder to think what poor single mothers are doing these days. No one has any job security. The powers that be are about to dismantle healthcare. There is also a real problem with student debt that is not being addressed in any adequate way whatsoever. The only person I've heard lately making any strides in that direction is Bob Rae who is circulating a proposal to introduce something called (I think) repayment geared to income which means you pay as much as you can for the rest of eternity. And then after you're dead they take your corpse and sell that for parts and give your children to the white slavers. Oh sorry I mean, if you're poor and can't find a job you don't have to pay a lot (just as much as you can) but you pay over a longer period. But this is not any different than what exists already. That is, it proposes to formalise the status quo. I think a lot of people aren't getting married because of this loans thing. I think they should introduce free tuition. I think it would also be nice if we heard more from poor people. I think it would be nice to have a sympathetic story in the Globe about how single mothers including single mothers on welfare are doing these days.

We are quite ahead of the loop on this one.

Personally, I think we're better off sticking to the concrete when it comes to politics.

Bear with me with the exercise, though, woudja?

Okay. I'm shutting up now.

No - I mean <i>don't</i> go away!

To directly answer your question, Al, I guess I would try to frame a positive "liberal" message in the following light: "If you are a true American, you will live and let live, you will respect my right to make up my own mind as I respect your right to do the same. That is what America is all about: Freedom. It was this quest for Freedom that led the drafters of the Constitution to create the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. My right not to say a prayer in school is as American as the Star Spangled Banner. If you honour my rights, you honour our flag and our country."

I think American liberals, as I said above, have to tap into the American vs. un-American concept of morality. I'm saying this more on a myth-building level than on an appeal to the actual contents of the Constitution, but that is what the American righties have been doing. I don't a copy of the American Constitution in front of me, but I am vaguely aware that they do have provisions for amending it democratically. However, I believe that the combination of the text of the Constitution combined with American common law rulings on some constitutional matters make certain elements of it virtually unalterable allowing their society to proceed on a commonly understood political foundation. For example, in the phrase: "...that all men are created equal..." I believe it has been established that "men" is defined as "people" thereby including women, but not including, say, goldfish.

i'm not supporting saynay as to what should happen because i dont know what should happen (although i support his anlysis), but to hans i say that his position is exactly the position that the dems take now. and it ain't getting anyone elected anytime soon. smell the coffee buddy - this freak show that is the republican party won the popular vote. damn.

Hans: it may be "rubbish" as you say, but it appears to be the fact.

In your list of "great American principles" you forgot "the right to vote", and to middle America that presumably means the right to vote and make choices on these issues which are important in their view. This is where the left and the right (for lack of better terms as Hans points out) depart.

The leftish view seems to accept that these moral issues are not open for democractic choices: they are "enshringed rights" because they impinge on, or deal, with percieved individual freedoms (ie. the woman's "right" to choose; your "right" to marry someone of the same sex etc.). Those on the left also seem blind to the fact that this view, in of itself, is a "moral" choice.

These "middle" America voters with their rightist views, disagree with this and seem to believe that there are limits to individual freedoms ("moral" limits if you like). Maybe moderate middle Americans (as portland states) might agree that, for instance, a woman may have the "right" to choose, but at what age, and is it moral that public funds should be used to assist in this choice? Or that gays and lesbians should be allowed to form "civil unions", but is it a "right" that they be allowed to "marry"? "Middle" America obviously sees that the democratic process should be involved in the debate, discussion of, and decision on, these issues. The left thinks these issues should be "off the table" as "given rights".

Al's question was, in part, how does the left regain ground in America? I think it is agreed that if the left does not appeal to middle America, there is no hope to regain ground. And just as there are loonies on the "right", there are "loonies" on the left. If the suggestion is that there are no moral based limits to individual freedoms coming from the left, what choice does middle America have?

Perhaps it is not so much that middle America has embraced the "right", as it is the preception that the "left" in America has drifted so far from the middle (ie. what is a "moderate" view in middle America, would be "extreme right" view in Canada?)

If there is no moderation in left's view of this contest of "civl rights v. morality", then the polls would suggest, get comfortable in the wilderness.

hans, i can only add that reality is harsh stuff.

My distance from America may impact my sense of things but I disagree that the democrats have been saying anything close to what I've written. My perception is that the "right" have claimed all the political ground about what the definition of "American values" are. Michael Moore has stated that he is actually more American than the people/things he criticizes. He is generally scoffed at as a liberal loonie. So my point, using the idea of individual rights as an illustration, is that the democrats have to re-claim the definition of "America values" as including individual rights. And to take it the extra step that portland and SayNay have persuasively questioned, the democrats have to make the claim that the idea of the "silent majority" democratically dictating how my individual rights are limited is also un-American. Maybe Middle America wants foist their morality on other citizens, but the liberals have to convince them that they are wrong. If Al's question is how do liberals appeal to Middle America, my answer is to examine the original basis of the creation of America (I say its Freedom), frame all liberal ideas as "American" and then attack the right as being un-American because they don't believe in Freedom. I really don't think the democrats have done this.

Right now, the republicans get to dictate what is American: driving big cars is American, alternative fuels are liberal. snitching on your neighbours is American, being nice to arabs is liberal. guns are American, gun control is liberal. Liberals in America do act like individual rights are off the table of discussion, but they should be acting like individual rights are being attacked.

I still see SayNay's comments as framing the discussion along familiar "rightist" lines: Middle America wants to be able to vote on issues of morality and the "left" is out of step with reality if it cannot accept that. I disagree. I think, liberals have to frame public debate on another level: liberals have to convince Middle America that some rights are "inalienable"; there is a heirarchy of rights: we see this in the Canadian Constitution, the democratic right to vote does not trump the right to freedom of expression, for example. Surely this exists in the American Constitution as well. Indeed isn't that where the word "inalienable" comes from? Some principles are sacrosanct. The NRA has effectively argued that carrying a gun is a fundamental right in America. Surely liberals can use the Constitution and subsequent American common law to establish reproductive rights are part and parcel of the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as American values that are irreproachable.

I will leave debate about why the individual rights of a person trump everything else in a society including morality to another time and place.

p.s. I've seen plenty of reality and don't like it one bit.

Look this is not the first time a democracy has drifted off course, it may have been the real result of a real election but I think a lot of those votes were cast by people who don't know what they're choosing. Like that guy who said he had to vote for Bush because he had 250000 US dollars in loans for his college education. He was voting for Bush even though Bush hasn't shown any objective desire to help anyone or make the economy better because he had the mistaken belief that Bush was in fact doing good things for the economy. I think there are a lot of people like that in the US. I think a lot of people were also voting out of a missplaced sense of patriotism. I don't think it has anything to do with whether middle America likes gays.

So in a way it's a false assessment of the situation. It's not moral at all. I think the election result is actually a matter of short term fooling of some of the people for some of the time. The real worry is that the US will cease being a democracy, i.e. that people will choose a course that will see it drift into oligarchy.

Excellent discussion. I think Hans is right in reminding of the exercise. THe left has lost its way and needs to reassert. I do not know that the civic moral tale of the principles of the state is going to be sufficient. Remember my original thesis - that both faith and heart have to be included because middle America, unlike Canada, has accepted the relevance of faith. What is unaware, I would suggest, is that it is a largely false prophet form of the faith devoid of the Good News that is one (but only one) of the key supports of North American freedom. This is not to say that the sacredness of life issues will necessarily get off as scot-free as the left might like now. For me, however, that is a small bit of the overall. The right uses it as a red flag to divert attention to all the Mammonism they are up to otherwise. Plus, it may very well be valid or at least one of the ensions that has to be taken into account if a large enough part of the middle is to be attracted back.

People vote with their hearts, not their heads,(Kinda like how I chose my x)which provides a sense of "connection" between the voter and the administration/the process. And to seek otherwise would court disinterest.(Kinda like how I feel about my x. Sorry, that may be too much information for most.) Short-term fooling is part of the analysis, but I evaluate the results perhaps differently then Lisa seems to. The effects of morality on the outcome of the election is not false or over-rated. I feel it was also a factor. In the mix, there certainly were others,including falsification. Personality traits of the leaders and the influence of fear were also issues,certainly matters of the heart. These topics seem to be hitting mainstream media analysis today. We were ahead of them in these matters.

Voters were motivated by "morality" but what is called "morality" may not be the extent of the moral or even moral at all. When you see "moral values" used you know you are in trouble as that is an oxymoron, relativism itself.<p>What the left needs to assert is a stronger moral stance that restates the principles (not values) which are fundamental to the community. Properly reviewed, the moral values of the right are quite weak but as they are wrapped up in the exclusive title "moral" they are quite immune from review.

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", "individual liberty" and "tolerance": - yes, as Hans states, these are part of the cornerstone of American society - as Al says, part of the "fundamental principles".

But the left consistently messages that "tolerance" or the establishment of an individual "right" should be equated with approbation - and that an expanded Government then should be the one charged with protecting and promoting these "rights" as unassailable "values" or "principles" of American society.

This is the antithesis of the American experience and an anethema to middle America.

Of course it isn't. George Bush is a massive expander of government. It is a modern myth of the right that America was created by pioneers. The economic engine of the east was a creation of the administrative powers of the government, to create a military, to create the Erie Canal that allowed for the expansion west and to protect the rights that the majority would crush. <p>George Washington sent armies into Western Pennsylvania to crush the individual and the wildcards. The Oklahoma Federal building is a shrine to those who died, attacked by the intolerant, the undiverse. Both the American experience and middle America are creatures of the power of the government to impose order. The myth of teh right denies that for the few. The rewriting of history needs to be undone.

Al, your last post is, well, ...let's just say that your statements "...it is a modern myth of the right that America was created by pioneers..." and "..the rewriting of history needs to be undone...", left me...where do I begin...

Look, maybe this will help: Ken Burns and Steven Ives, with PBS, have done a great series on the Western expansion of the US, and I suggest you check out the PBS website for some historical facts on the individuals and, yes, "pioneers" who settled the West see:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/
(check out, for instance, the 1840 to 1850 timeline)

Unless, of course, you believe that Ken Burns and co. are part of some "revisionist right conspiracy" to "re-write" American history, then don't bother.

Save us. What a crap artist you are some time. If the best come back you can come up with about the role of the government in the founding of the US is a Ken Burns PBS series keep it to yourself. People around here are trying to actually think about this and you are starting to get left behind.

Rather than Ken Burns, I would refer you both to Turner's "frontier thesis" of American history whereby America was expanded by enterprising pioneers moving further and further west in pursuit of individual "life liberty and happiness". Government, in the form of the likes of Judge Roy Bean, eventually caught up providing things like the rule of law to the newly settled territories.

In my opinion, the myth is that it is the liberals that are all about big government (which is anathema to middle America) and that big government is bad. Al, you seem to be saying that the left should let people know that government can be good and that the republicans, if blame is to be laid for big government, is at least equally to blame for over-regulation and too much government interference in peoples lives.

I guess I'll check the new thread to see how you've solved this problem.

Government preceded clearly. Find out why the Hurons of Ontario are in Wyoming and you will realize it. Also research the Erie Canal's role.

Al, I guess I should have simply ignored your post about the "right's pioneer myth" or used you language, that your "thesis" is so much "crap" -your misrepresentation of American history adds nothing to the "thinking" about these issues.

And Hans, there is a link to Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" at the PBS site Al was referred to above - if he cared to inform himself.

There will be push back on the creation of the alternate myth based on different facts, for sure. The sucess of the new myth will be in its better expression of reality. Mistaking the founding of the nation in the eigthteenth century for events in the mid-nineteenth sentury will be one of those corrections. Another will be the actual story of what happened in the mid-nineteenth. <p>Neither of those restatements will alighn with the conservative myth that you love and have bought...but that is the whole point. So, again, get with the program or get out of the way but if you think we are going ot worry about things looking different than you see in the flyers in your closet, you are going to be sadly mistaken.

It would seem the first step in your "program" is to re-write all history inconsistent with your present view of the world, as mere "myth" ("the stuff of wispey dreams" I think is the turn of phrase you used when once discussing the importance or non-importance of "traditions").

This is a dishonest, disingenuous, non-starter - a Marxist-Leninist world view ("there is no objective 'history', there exists only the 'history' which we choose to believe). That should play well in Peoria.

Anyway, I'll get out of the way - create your fantasy world in which you choose to live.

You have yours - the whole point is here to create the other better one.

Precisely, Al.

So watch it, SayNay, or me and Hans will give you a cherry-belly!

Somehow that fits with you two "school yard" bullies.

Ha! There's a recourse of the right you will see more and more of as the hand starts to slip from self-appointed moral absolutists championship - the big sook!

Additional reading on this subject, an equally interesting perspective, can be found <a href="http://www.kottke.org/04/11/how-bush-won" target="blank">here.</a>

I've got a better idea than this 'recreate the left's mythology.' I say instead we should just get a candidate who has more appeal to right wing voters. For more on this see The Internationalist.

Do you have a link for that? It is a fairly impossible term to google.

Again - accept the myth we have achieved. Don't pretent to have another better myth, don't pretend it is a myth. Someone doth protest too much.

The internationalist is here: http://www.multicultural-adventure.blogspot.com/

I've never seen SayNay question any of his/her own myths. If anyone contradicts him/her, s/he always says that that person is a slacker or a dumb bully (which by the way is not an argument, it's a logical fallacy). It doesn't matter that his oponent is actually five feet tall and kind of timid. It doesn't matter if that person has written several critiques of the left as well. Anyway, SayNay (whoever he she or it is) is obviously livid and obviously too beyond reason to look at his/her own dogma. Nothing that SayNay says has anything to do with reality. We all of us read the Post and the Globe. We all have Republican friends. None of us is preaching 'tolerance' or relativism (I certainly am not). None of us is actually doing what Say Nay says we are doing. And if George Bush is dumb, well, he's just dumb.

Incidentally, Hans is preaching liberty, Alan is preaching the middle ground and I am preaching egalitarianism. If you read the National Post less and paid attention to what we were actually saying, you would know that. Honestly, I've never met such a complete zealot.

Gee, Lisa. I hate to say I told you so, but...Al did not want to talk about it when I brought it (the issue of leadership)up last week.

I have no idea what you are talking about Wayne. Hand baggery of the lowest order. Here is my take. Only by working out policy, leadership will be determined. I spent a very pleasurable evening a few years ago with some of the leadership of the Liberal Party of a province loudly lecturing them on the need for policy. Willson saw the events and I recall was pleased by the bluntness and finger-pointery. Until you have policy, there is nothing for a leader to run with and no idea who will be the leader. Leadership without policy is an abdication of responsibility.<p>[Ed.:<i>A number of posts have been removed to the Sayings of Nay and Wayne's World posts</i>].

I haven't denied rights to anyone. And you are clearly a nut. [Ed.: <i>refer to Sayings of Nay for nut identification purposes</i>].

Start discussing the topic and not attacking or I am going to bar you. You are bland and repetative, SayNay, and proving your self-appointed mask.

At what point in the conversation did any of us profess our undying love for Michael Moore? How it is that anyone even vaguely on the left is now a slacker is not explained by this comment. You're just mouthing banalities that you've heard on TV or in the Post. Don't you have any thoughts of your own?

Sorry - I've been watching too much of that crap "Crossfire".

I do not mind substantive contradiction but rehashing other topics and using that as some sort of generic upper hand is both worthless and telling.

Ya, ya - I get the point. Sorry, Lisa, some of my comments were unfair to you, Al and Hans.

Anyway portland had it right first and was bang on.

[Ed.: <i>Rusty has provided without comment the URL to this link implicity making his point. As it is a rude URL and one expressing a view I do not likely share, follow the link on your own peril and please do not foam at the mouth here over what it says. Speak to Rusty about it at recess.]</i>

Yawn. Sorry, couldn't get through it.

Scanned over it - got the flavor of it - ...I don't know why but it conjured up the image of Dennis Leary on a rant, for some reason.....

This is one super duper site1