are evil. We just think they're wrong. I'm the only person in my family who isn't a Republican, and in general I have no problem with that. Our conflicting ideologies make for thrilling arguments. At least we never get bored.

But assume they are good and try to convince them with facts.  If you can't, then maybe they are the one's right.

Or maybe it means they don't care about the facts and have decided to be irrational? Rational people will usually back down and agree that we're right a lot of the time. My parents have accepted that abortion should be legal because they both have brains in their heads. A lot of decent Republicans are also ready and willing to compromise on gay rights. You, however, still haven't given me a good reason for opposing them. Doesn't matter how many times I ask, you never give a cogent response.

We should not be more "liberal" (by liberal you apparently mean spineless and willing to give in to the Republicans) on most of those issues. Absolutely NO compromise on abortion rights. Sorry, the GOP point of view is ignorant and unacceptable. We shouldn't give an inch. Nor should we ever even consider backing off on issues like gay rights. I'm sorry, but I happen to think homosexuals should have the same rights as everyone else. Silly me. I won't even get into school vouchers, affirmative action, oil drilling, etc with you because I have a feeling we'd run into a brick wall.

Backing away from what's right isn't the answer. I realize that compromise is important, but that doesn't mean we should fail to take a stand on the issues that matter. The fact that we can't convince idiots with logic and reason doesn't mean they're right.

Funny how it used to be that calling someone a "liberal" was paramount to using a naughty word.  Now conservatives are trying to re-define it to mean "don't hurt me, please!" now that their ideology is out of favor.

I have no problem finding solutions that work, and I'm fine with looking across the aisle for ideas... in fact, I agree that it's the key to building a lasting majority: co-opting your opponents' good ideas makes it harder for them to unseat you.

What I do have a problem with is the suggestion that, in order to find these working solutions, we should compromise our principles.  Your list of issues where Democrats should be more flexible is preposterous.  Gay rights?  So we're backing off from the whole civil rights thing?  Supreme Court nominations?  Because surely we've got PLENTY of wiggle room there before our rights (including abortion) start being majorly curtailed...  Vouchers?  What kind of lunatic would suggest that the way to fix the public schools which are a hallmark of modern democracy is to take money away from the ones that are struggling the most and give it to rich private school owners?

In short: No.  Again you attempt to sneak in your DLC ideology of capitulation on core values, and again it's unacceptable.

Interestingly.  I was a Republican for many years (Clinton was the first Democrat I voted for and I have always joked that he was the best Republican President we ever had).  I don't feel my views have changed significantly, and I agree with the Democratic Party on all the items listed in the second list.

Used to be that the Republicans were mostly interested in your trade and fiscal policy stances...then they got all cozy with the moral majority types.  Being from California, the fundies confuse and scare me and I won't share a party with them.

I have said this so much in so many comments and diaries that I have to ask forgiveness for repeating myself, because I am about to.

I have been guilty of demonizing repeatedly in my life.  I have done it to people on both "sides".  It has never been an active thing but more an artifact of allowing myself the comfort of intelltectual laziness.  And I am sure I will do it again.

What has, with luck, changed in me is that I am more willing to self-reflect on my reactions to people's positions.  Giving up the willingness to pick a side and fight for it is not imo the method to solving problems - it often takes a heated exchange to get all the opinions on the table - but in between dust-ups I try to see how a reasonable person would hold the opposing view.

I have made a profession out of understanding why people do bad things.  You start by trying to figure out "why are people evil", but you come to realize that at best most people doing bad things are simply incorrect.

A perfect example was an English couple we met last fall who were staying in the same hotel in Florida as we looked at homes.  He works to catch online child predators, she works with them in prison.  The folks they oppose for a living are the prime category of "publically accepted evil" - it is OK to Hate these people, to demonize them on every possible level - what they do is so offensive that they must be evil!  This couple - two people who know more from personal experience about child predators than most of us could stomach - say otherwise.  While being more than able to put their heart and souls (and lives) on the line to stop them and lock them up, they feel sorry for them.  They are usually people with very sad stories in their own lives - often they were the vicitim in their own youths - who outside of their heinous sexual compulsions are capable of thinking and feeling and knowing right from wrong (almost all of them ackowledge that their actions are flatly wrong).

Will Smith took a lot of fack earlier this year for saying: <sic> "I don't think Hitler got up each morning thinking about how he could be more evil today".

Conservatives do not want to burn the forests and kill all the bunny rabbits.  Socialists do not want to impoverish everyone.  The folks who flew those planes into buildings and the Amageddonists who hope that the End is Near believe that the Benevolent Creator of the World see these things as positive events.

People are rarely Evil, they are just often wrong.  Democrats included.

-chris

it is that so many in the party consider an opposing viewpoint as EVIL, bigoted, UNAMERICAN.

Just exactly how do you suggest the Democrats become more 'liberal' when it comes to Gay rights? Does that mean buying into the idea of inequality? What suggestions do you have for Democrats to be more 'liberal' when it comes to unions?

abortion

gay rights

school vouchers

affirmative action

Unions

oil drilling/nuclear power

I think the only issue that I agree with your notion of being liberal on is drilling/oil.  

For me, there can be no compromise on abortion.  I don't consider a fetus to be human life until viability (if then), so there should never be any restriction on abortions until 5-6 months (we can debate the exact deadline).  

The issue of gay rights is mostly non-negotiable to me, though if civil unions were to have exactly the same rights as marriage but be a different name, I'd be ok with that as a temporary transition to eventually calling it marriage.

School vouchers are a terrible choice in my mind, but I also think the entire educational system needs to be revamped from the bottom up (starting with where the funding comes from...property taxes), so vouchers won't be an issue eventually.

I guess it depends on how you define "affirmative action," but I believe in diversity for diversity's sake.  So if a college needs to let in certain less qualified minorities (including men) to maintain a diverse student population, I am all for that.  It teaches people to interact in the real world they are about to enter.

I wholeheartedly support the right of unions to exist and won't shop at Walmart because of their policies regarding unionization of workers.  That does not mean unions are always right on every issue, as the failure of our auto manufacturing sector shows.

As far as drilling, I don't want more oil drilling, but I absolutely want more nuclear power as a stopover/transition to being all renewable some day.  I don't understand what Obama wants the stopover to be because he seems to be against nuclear.  I understand the fears of nuclear, and I want us eventually on solar, wind, wave, etc.  But I prefer nuclear to oil or coal (though clean coal is possible).  

Yes, I tend to agree with a lot of posters here.

I am NOT going to feel comfortable with saying the Democratic Party should compromise on supporting Equal Rights for the LGBT community.

It's too much in line with why I am a democrat to begin with?

I think Obama has it correct. We can't just condemn out of hand those whose viewpoints disagree with us on these basic issues of human rights.

It's best to clearly listen to their viewpoints, but to somehow condone them, that is where I can not go and I think that's what he is saying.

Takes some cajones to go into a black church and tell the congregation they are wrong on gay rights, but he has done that.

Also takes Cajones to do as Michelle has, clearly state Gay rights are Civil Rights.

There has to be equality of rights, or the statement written on the front of the USSC court is a lie.

Lee Atwater
Carl Rove
Southern Strategy
Welfare Queens in Cadillacs
Willie Horton
SBVFT

I simply don't see the corresponding sense of institutionalized ruthlessness and bigotry from the Democratic side. in the same vein, I see no reason to ompromise on gay rights. Every person must be treated as a full person, period. As far as:

abortion
school vouchers
affirmative action
Unions
oil drilling/nuclear power

While I won't compromise on the goals behind those solutions, I will accept better solutions. For exmaple, affirmative action is a crappy solution to a real problem. I'll accept a better one.

I'm pretty sure that when this government was founded the idea of a permanent majority wasn't the idea. That's the establishment of an aristocracy.

Furthermore, the whole point of having principles (at least the important ones) is that you don't compromise on them; otherwise they're just words. For example, I don't support the capital punishment under any circumstances. I wouldn't execute Bin Laden if we captured him because that makes me the same kind of asshole that he is.

Once you say "Well, we need to compromise to reach goals", you become what is known in the vernacular as a "sellout". Working together to reach a genuinely beneficial solution that is in line with your principles is one thing; selling your morals just to get things done is cheating.