On the EDge: Time for liberals to stand up to political poison

Background image courtesy of ADragan via iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. George News

OPINION – One of the other voices of St. George News dropped a line I find fascinating: “The liberal mindset permeates far too much of the judicial and media landscape.”

It prompts me to ask, how much liberalism is too much and how much is just enough?

More importantly, who will be the arbiter of what is liberal and what is not?

I have seen, for example, many Democrats assailed as being over-the-edge liberals for simply waving a blue pennant. The Clintons, neither of which lands solidly in the liberal camp, are good examples. In terms of classic definition, both Hillary and Bill Clinton line up closer to the politics of Richard Nixon than the classic liberalism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or George McGovern.

Of course, try explaining that to the hang-‘em-high posse that rides with the current administration. Their shallow understanding of politics is anchored in purposely unfounded soundbites to which they respond with dog-whistle responses.

The demonization of the liberal cause is, of course, nearing its 40th anniversary. It came about when Ronald Reagan, a former liberal himself who in 1948 endorsed a Harry Truman concept of single-payer health coverage for all Americans, pulled off one of the nation’s greatest political flip-flops and stormed to a landslide win over the hapless Jimmy Carter.

It was, for those of us who remember, a particularly embarrassing moment.

Here we had a gentleman at heart who was so ineffective that the best he could do when trying to rescue American hostages in the Middle East was crash helicopters in the desert.

Reagan seized on this weakness and took it as his campaign position, thus delivering his well-rehearsed spitting out of the word “liberal” with a hefty bit of venom boosted by an equal amount of contempt. It was, arguably, the best bit of script the former B-actor ever memorized.

But a gullible public lapped it up and Ronnie became President Grandpa because everybody counted on him to take us by the hand and make everything OK again.

It was a marketing, public relations coup of great magnitude, an effort by, as a song by Don Henley referred to him as, that “tired old man who we elected king” that rang down the curtain on courteous debate and discussion. It was, indeed, the end of the innocence and we have yet to recover.

Democrats have tried vainly to correct this injustice, this prejudice, this lie by trying to use reason, history and truth. They have tried to switch their descriptor from “liberal” to “progressive” with little result. They have traveled higher moral ground in many instances refusing to use vitriol and invective to combat this nastiness and all they ever got was older and more bitter.

I have been, like it or not, the guy who for the last 20 or so years has refused to hide his affiliation, dug in his heels and owned it.

Yeah, I’m a liberal.

And, I make no bones about it.

You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to agree. It’s all good with me, so, don’t ever expect an apology regarding my political affiliation. I don’t want one from you, don’t look for one from me. It is simply not going to happen.

I believe in liberal causes, liberal politics and liberal philosophy.

It is much more challenging these days to be a liberal than in the day of FDR or Truman. Back then, liberal was simply a descriptive term, not a pejorative. We had room for liberals and conservatives.

Now?

Not so much.

The differences are simple.

A liberal will understand that differences are key to problem solving.

A conservative travels a narrow path, afraid that a different perspective might wreck their fragile foundation.

A liberal will embrace diversity, whether cultural, religious or ethnic based.

We have sadly observed conservatism drift deep into the white nationalist movement where there is no tolerance for anything other than a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayo while the theme from “Deliverance” plays in the background.

You’re boring, conservative America, because you have no color, no spice.

Your claim to patriotism, conservative America, is unfounded because you are trying desperately to dismantle a free press and to strangle our system of checks and balances by not keeping a suspicious and watchful eye on what is taking place in this administration.

Your claim to moral superiority, conservative America, flew out the window when Stormy Daniels, Billy Bush and the Steele dossier landed on your perch.

You’re irrelevant, conservative America, because sooner rather than later, your money and power will run out when Putin switches us from dollars to rubles.

You may hold a Congressional majority right now, conservative America, but there is a very good chance that will be gone after the midterms, which will offer you the opportunity once again to trash talk about vote fixing that never happened, the “deep state,” which is at the heart of all conservative frustrations and crooked so-and-so and the fake media for influencing the fake voters who flocked to the polls to cast fake ballots for the dirty, socialist/commie hippie scum running for office as Democrats.

They will spit out the word “liberal” with contempt as they have for almost four decades and will blame it all on Obama who, of course, has nothing to do with the demise of the once Grand Ol’ Party.

So your barbs, your contempt are wasted on me as they are on a number of fellow liberals who will not be cowed by some bullies with a poor vocabulary.

So, we must turn that opening statement around and say: “The conservative mindset permeates far too much of the judicial and media landscape.”

And, we might add, it has done likewise to the political landscape, which has been stained by a sick brand of partisanship that has unleashed the most divisive era of our nation.

So while the political bullies from the right may have some liberals cowering, this one isn’t budging an inch.

I’m a liberal and proud of it.

If you don’t like it that’s your problem, not mine.

Just don’t expect me to roll over and play dead.

Somebody has to stand up to this political poison.

No bad days!

Ed Kociela is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews, @EdKociela

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2018, all rights reserved.

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68 Comments

  • John June 12, 2018 at 3:45 pm

    Ed Your head has more of a point than this piece!

    • Lee Saunders June 12, 2018 at 10:33 pm

      Ignore him, ignore him. He has nothing more credible to say than “hahahaha” and “Waah, waah”. He hasn’t typed anything of intelligence in recent times unless he copied and pasted and then by accident.

      • John June 13, 2018 at 1:00 am

        Take a hike Loser Libtard! Go cry someplace else busboy@!

        • No Filter June 13, 2018 at 8:22 am

          Ha Ha Ha does colonel sanders (no offense Lee) have you so worked up that you can’t go to sleep Lumpy or were you just up late watching reruns of Hannity? Now I feel bad comparing Utahguns to you, that was a mistake, no one can stoop to your level of stupid.

          • John June 13, 2018 at 12:34 pm

            you are already at that level mr septic!

  • St Geo June 12, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    This is the classic art of liberal deception Ed: “sooner rather than later, your money and power will run out when Putin switches us from dollars to rubles.”
    I have to tell you this gave me the best belly laugh I’ve had in days, maybe even weeks.

    Here’s more that shows you for what you are. “your barbs, your contempt are wasted on me as they are on a number of fellow liberals who will not be cowed by some bullies with a poor vocabulary.” Those are your words Ed.

    For you Ed, you have the convenience to choose if being a liberal is ok with you since you don’t even reside in the Greater St George Area, or even the United States ever since you absconded to Mexico so that your liberal dollar can stretch further. And that’s ok with me and all other conservatives who would rather have you there than here. Which is saving us having to listen to the doped up rhetoric that drools out of your quaalude induced vitriolic socialist mouth. Now if only St George News would put you in time out, that would just be the cherry on top of the sundae as far as I’m concerned.

    • Lee Saunders June 12, 2018 at 10:35 pm

      You are delusional. Where do you come up with this crap?

      • John June 13, 2018 at 1:00 am

        Lee, your’e a moron!

        • No Filter June 13, 2018 at 8:53 am

          That means so much coming from a person who can’t even use the correct spelling of you’re. Auto-correct can’t fix stupid all the time.

          • John June 13, 2018 at 9:49 am

            Is that why you always cry cloggy?

          • John June 13, 2018 at 1:36 pm

            cloggy, found you in the dictionary!!
            putz = informal : a stupid, foolish, or ineffectual person : jerk

    • No Filter June 13, 2018 at 8:56 am

      Just like Trump, you are trying to stop the press because they say something you don’t like. You don’t hear the liberals on STGNEWS telling Bryan to be taken of the website.

      • John June 13, 2018 at 6:58 pm

        PUTZ

        • No Filter June 14, 2018 at 8:20 am

          You called me PUTZ three times in this one article, yet you have no reason to call me that other than I have a different opinion than you. I don’t care what you call me, but you really should have some reasoning behind it. If I am so stupid, then why can you NEVER tell me why my opinions are stupid. You continue to play childhood games like “I know you are but what am I”. It really bothers me that people have regressed so bad in this country. People like you are the reason our forefathers made the government the way they did, to protect the uneducated and low IQ people from hurting themselves. I know you will never change, but I just wanted you to know that I feel sorry for you, but remember it’s not your fault, you were just dealt a bad hand in life.

          • John June 14, 2018 at 10:25 am

            PUTZ.. my reason is you ARE a PUTZ !
            Definition of putz: a stupid, foolish, or ineffectual person : jerk

          • John June 14, 2018 at 10:35 am

            It’s so nice the government protects low IQ people like you from hurting yourself. Your comments are always so far off the original subject it seems you are replying to some imaginary fairytale , That is what a PUTZ does…Just like you!

          • No Filter June 14, 2018 at 10:49 am

            You have proven my point again, I am sorry this worked you up so much that you had to post a reply twice. This must really bother you, so I am not going to reply again. I don’t want to be an enabler.

          • John June 14, 2018 at 2:01 pm

            it didn’t work me up . PUTZ!hahahahahaha!

  • No Filter June 12, 2018 at 4:08 pm

    I am not going anywhere either, I may not be able to get Utah to turn blue, but will post my vote non the less.

  • Real Life June 12, 2018 at 4:13 pm

    Oh boy.

    • Striker4 June 13, 2018 at 6:04 am

      You better get some rest. after taking the time to come up with another one of your idiotic brain burps…you must be exhausted

      • Real Life June 13, 2018 at 8:23 am

        Who woke you from your induced coma?

  • Southpaw June 12, 2018 at 4:19 pm

    After reading this I would recommend you fire up another big doobie Ed. It appears you did that before writing this piece.

  • Kilroywashere June 12, 2018 at 4:57 pm

    Thus spracht Charlie Brown’s teacher: wah waaah wah… wah wah waaah wah. Wah? Waaaaaah. Wah wah wah wahwah, waaaaaah. Liberalism is dead. Now Lenin’s on sale again. Socialism is the new Liberalism. You’re going to have to face it Ed you’re getting old. I did read it.

  • bikeandfish June 12, 2018 at 4:58 pm

    Ed, your pieces are a component of the poison. Being a proud liberal doesn’t mean conservatives are bad, or whatever pejorative adjective you throw around without any sense of irony. Conservatives and liberals can coexist, and currently do on the regular, but its made less tenable by the extremist ideology you espouse. I mean how ridiculous is it to say on one hand that “the political landscape, which has been stained by a sick brand of partisanship that has unleashed the most divisive era of our nation” while also unabashedly insulting sincere Americans with “You’re irrelevant, conservative America.” Really?

    Its that brand and behavior of partisanship that is damaging our country.

    • Utahguns June 12, 2018 at 7:18 pm

      Damn, B&F….
      Sometimes you speak with opinions and logic that I agree with. Then , there’s other times I feel you’re coming out of left field with commentaries.
      Today, I agree with you.
      There’s also something that must be said…
      In previous editorials, I’ve made some comments back to you that were completely unprofessional and distasteful, and that I apologize for.
      Who knows, we may end up sharing the same fishing hole someday, or run across each other on a single track (me: Vintage Specialized Hard Rock Comp).
      And, if we end up hooking the same fish or coming to a single track crossroads, I’m confident we can work that out as well.
      Peace.

      • bikeandfish June 12, 2018 at 9:14 pm

        Appreciate it and no worries. I think most of us could share a campfire in peace.

    • Lee Saunders June 12, 2018 at 10:40 pm

      This post must really blow the minds of those who call you “Ed, Bikeandfish”. Love it!

      • John June 13, 2018 at 12:35 pm

        you mean “blow” like you?

      • bikeandfish June 13, 2018 at 5:59 pm

        Indeed. All of the wild conjecture the last year has been entertaining.

  • Blemonds June 12, 2018 at 5:01 pm

    It’s absurd for Kociela to claim that conservatism has drifted deep into white nationalism. Are there white nationalist that hold conservative ideas, yes. That only reflects on them though, not on conservatism in general. Kociela may praise the “virtues” of liberalism, yet he ignores what liberalism is about. Among other things, it is about killing unborn babies. It’s about girls kissing girls and men marrying other men and trying to force others into accepting that. It’s about men using women’s restrooms because they themselves suffer from gender dysphoria. It’s about, as we’ve seen recently, allowing gender dysphoric boys to compete against girls in high school sports, running away with the trophies. One of the main tenants of liberalism is taking money away from a person who earned it and giving it to a person who didn’t earn it.

    If we follow Kociela’s logic, we can say that liberalism has drifted deep into domestic terrorism since the Antifa domestic terrorists identify as liberal. I saw a T-shirt recently with a meme that said if you want to anger a conservative, lie to him. If you want to anger a liberal, tell him the truth. No Ed, we don’t expect you as a proud liberal to roll over and die. However, we do expect you to tell the truth

    • Gcia June 12, 2018 at 10:18 pm

      Amen!!!

    • Lee Saunders June 12, 2018 at 10:41 pm

      Gawd, you are full of it!

      • John June 13, 2018 at 1:01 am

        Liberals are the crybabies lee, like you! Can’t you read?

    • No Filter June 13, 2018 at 8:47 am

      Marriage is a legal matter not a church matter, so if your beliefs are against gay marriage talk to your church because the government doesn’t care about your thoughts on gay marriage. On the bathroom thing, if you don’t like it you can hold it or go to Chick-fil-a. I noticed you didn’t complain about women using men’s bathrooms did you? How about when girls who see themselves as boys compete against other boys? This seems one sided to me. You may be against abortion which is fine if you don’t want to have one, but you have no right to make decisions for other people. I bet if your daughter was raped by a MS-13 member and got pregnant you would be for an abortion. So follow your own beliefs and leave the rest of us to choose for ourselves. You conservatives complain of the nanny state, yet you are the ones trying to tell people where to pee and who to love.

  • Utahguns June 12, 2018 at 5:38 pm

    Quickest way to turn blue is restrict oxygen to the body, which apparently some readers here have already done.

  • uprightandmovingforward June 12, 2018 at 6:54 pm

    Someone please tell me why St George News keeps publishing this crap from Ed.

    • a900rr June 12, 2018 at 8:51 pm

      I can’t Amen this enough.

    • bikeandfish June 12, 2018 at 9:29 pm

      Clicks and advertising.

      I think all three columnist are honest about their ideas but I think its a common tactic to employ political caricatures on small local pages like this to garner more attention.

      I wish more outlets provided platforms to voices that remain educated and passionate without demozing groups with different worldviews. But the cable news strategy of instigating conflict and hostility seems instead to be the standard.

      • comments June 13, 2018 at 7:33 pm

        I’ve told you before Bike, if you wrote up something real nice stgnews might publish it for you. If it was good enough they may even let you have a weekly, who knows… These guys–Hide and Kociela have been writing these weekly things for years, and often I feel they are just flat-out out of ideas of things to write about, so the writing overall suffers. Rather than just whine and complain, write something up and send it in. You don’t even have to admit that you are good ol’ bikefish when you submit it. 😉

        • bikeandfish June 14, 2018 at 6:08 pm

          I’ll just say I don’t “just write and complain”. Granted, how is writing a Letter to the Editor critiquing columnist statements, public policy, etc, any different than making statements here?

          I actually think directly critiquing individual statements here is more accurate and productive than attacking gross generalizations and stereotypes like Hyde and Ed do here weekly.

  • dogmatic June 12, 2018 at 7:22 pm

    Conservative morale superiority was awakened when liberals deceived the black population into believing that they are their liberators.

  • eddantes56 June 12, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    Ed says: “ We have sadly observed conservatism drift deep into the white nationalist movement where there is no tolerance for anything other than a bologna sandwich on white bread with mayo while the theme from ‘Deliverance’ plays in the background.

    You’re boring, conservative America, because you have no color, no spice.”

    Nice try with the ad hominem attacks but as usual you are riding ‘fact free’.

    First, you and every other minority have proclaimed identity politics as your birthright and now when the native anglo population pushes back and claims this nation is based on anglo culture and values, you have a coniption fit. LOL

    Anglos are the most tolerant people in the world….Take a look at where all the Africans, Latinos and South Asians want to come to live…….wait for it……the so-called “intolerant” USA. That is pretty weak tea Ed.

    Second, you may think you gain by calling white people white bread, mayo and by associating them with the movie Deliverance. This really shows your insecurity and demonstrates that you have an inferiority complex as big as the country of your ancestors.

    Third……conservative America or what I call Anglo America is not boring. Take a look at the last 500 years and guess what Ed, those “boring” white people transformed what was a short and brutish life into the comfortable life you enjoy today.

    Whose culture founded western civilization and the USA? Who invented 95%+ of all of the inventions that transformed the world and helped every man and woman in the world enjoy better health, more abundant food, better technology, etc?

    I’ve got a clue for you Ed, it was not your culture and it was not the Left that brought forth the miracle that is the U.S. It was those white founding fathers and decent men like Ronald Reagan that laid the foundation and carried the torch of our nation. Have we made mistakes? Yes. Have we been perfect? No. Can we and should we improve? Yes….

    But make no mistake, Neo-marxism that is a virus in this country along with neo marxists like yourself are not the solution.

    Have you ever read the Venona tapes, intercepted messages we captured for decades from the Soviet Union? Going back to the 1930, your “leftist/progressive” ancestors beginning with the New York Times, FDR, dozens of men and women in FDR’s administration and right up through the 1970s colluded with the Soviets, kissed the arse of the Soviets and did all they could to work against our country to bring utopian egalitarians to the U.S.

    I think you are pissed that Reagan challenged your Soviet gulag heroes and played a huge role in bringing down that marxist house of cards.

    What an absolute joke you, Nancy, Chuckie Schumer, Obama and all the rest are….A bunch of cultural marxists who just can help yourself. You are hell-bent on deconstructing western civilization and not that a few in this country are pushing back, you are panicking.

    Start the panick because this is our country. You don’t get to dictate what we say, what values we have, who our heroes are, et al.

    Sorry, you had better get used to it. The only practical solution is to assimilate into that accommodating and tolerant and vibrant Anglo culture. Let’s get crackin Ed! LOL

    • Real Life June 13, 2018 at 10:25 am

      You are spot on. Ed seems to have a hatred for white people everywhere. Tying conservatism to hate groups crossed the line.

  • Tyler June 12, 2018 at 9:20 pm

    Good ok Eddy. Always good for a laugh. I wish I could get paper copies of these. They would make excellent toilet paper

    • John June 13, 2018 at 2:26 am

      I print them out and use them to line my bird cage.

  • vickbill June 12, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    Ed once again proves liberalism is an mental illness.

  • commonsense June 12, 2018 at 9:49 pm

    Liberals embrace diversity, criminality, voter fraud, aberrant sexual behavior, open borders all in the name of political power. BTW. Diversity doesn’t include diverse political opinions.

    • comments June 13, 2018 at 7:38 pm

      Myself and a lot of other dem voters are not happy about the direction the d-party has gone in recent years. It’s still not enough to move us to the party whose trademark is corruption, greed, excess, and always shi**ing on the middle working class. (that’s your dear R-party in case it’s not obvious to you).

      • comments June 13, 2018 at 7:40 pm

        special Ed is quite the deluded hard-leftist lunatic to us dem votors with good sense.

  • Mean Momma June 12, 2018 at 10:52 pm

    It will all be okay Eddy boy…

    • John June 13, 2018 at 2:27 am

      Eddy boy isn’t exactly the sharpest too in the shed…hahahahaha!

      • John June 13, 2018 at 2:28 am

        tool

        • Mean Momma June 13, 2018 at 6:55 am

          Shhhhh… he thinks he’s the only “tool” in the shed. He is definitely a tool.

  • jaybird June 13, 2018 at 7:33 am

    Trumpers follow lock step with him in the cult they hope to keep them white. It may take a while but they and his cave man mentalities will go down with Hitler. Since when do conservative values mean higher debt, taking immigrant children from their parents, dirty water and air due to oil and gas interests, and handing over our democracy to despots, liars and fascists.

    • John June 13, 2018 at 5:33 pm

      You give birdbrains a bad name!

  • RadRabbit June 13, 2018 at 9:03 am

    Leftist are political poison

  • vintagehippie June 13, 2018 at 10:23 am

    Ed, it appears that you are getting senile. You outlined how conservatives pick on liberals, then proceeded to say the same things about conservatives that you claimed they say about liberals. One of your funnier lines was when you said “Your claim to moral superiority, conservative America, flew out the window when Stormy Daniels, Billy Bush and the Steele dossier landed on your perch.” Can you please tell me how liberals are morally superior when they continue to defend Bill Clinton’s playtime in the Oval Office, and even defend the fact that he raped several women. Your fellow liberals also seem to overlook that Hillary bragged about keeping a child rapist from going to prison.

    Yes, you are right in saying that the divisions in this country are deeper than ever. However, those divisions were caused by your hero Obuma and other liberals like you who are more concerned about forcing people to be “politically correct” than honoring the views or others.

  • commonsense June 13, 2018 at 4:39 pm

    A little history lesson Jaybird. Nazis were socialists, religious bigots and anti guns (except theirs).
    They advocated strong and pervassive government control and they allied with strange bedfellows like Italy and Japan just for power. Kind of sounds like the Democrats.

    • comments June 13, 2018 at 7:24 pm

      man, in your mind the R-party can do no wrong–always them evil librul socialist democrats. I may just go ahead and rule that you just troll for reactions. You do the same thing as Special Ed up there and troll for reactions and try to provoke people and create division. I’ve always felt your posts were trolling because they were always just so idiotic and simple–just dumb. I don’t believe you are this simple minded, I mean, you can’t be, can you? Trump’s campaign style probably borrowed more techniques directly from Hitler than any I’ve ever seen before. cheers buddy 😉

    • John June 13, 2018 at 11:04 pm

      jaybird is exactly what the name implies…bird brain… eat- poop-eat poop, and occasionally lay an egg.. not woth much else

  • vickbill June 13, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    Just wondering why all my comments are never published when I comment about liberalism is a mental illness.

  • vickbill June 13, 2018 at 4:55 pm

    All my comments regarding Ed’s articles are never published. They say my comments are waiting moderation. I say nothing compared to what is said. Censoring I believe is happening.

    • comments June 13, 2018 at 7:43 pm

      And yet here’s your comment right here. It’s a lot more of you just whining than it is censorship. haha 😉

      • John June 13, 2018 at 11:05 pm

        We know they don’t censor much…LOL… agreed with you..LOL hahahahahahahahahahaha!

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