UK's Thatcher, rot in hell . . .

Well, this has been interesting.I loathed Thatcher with the same intensity with which I loathed Reagan. Given the foulness of their politics, I found the dementia that claimed them both ironic.I share much of dronester's perspective. He is politically passionate, as am I. I think he also recognizes that the fictions with which we bury past leaders often burnish their reputations, and those burnished reputations continue to do real harm. Reagan, like the Hollywood zombie he was, continues to plague the U.S. from the grave.I note that dronester did not attend Thatcher's funeral and scream epithets. I don't think he would; nor would I.I fail to see why his venting in a forum should be treated as though he had. Nor do I think his venting makes him an adolescent or a failed human being inured to the largeness of "for whom the bell tolls" compassion.I can compile a long list of people who most graced life by the leaving of it. Thatcher is on that list. She did a great deal of harm with her power; she failed to do a great deal of good that was within her power.For me, the greatest significance of her death is that it became an occasion for an outcry against her lionization. That is why commenting now--and not last week--is important: because now is when the effort to rinse her sins away with sanctimony and sentimentality begins.I have no desire to sadden her family and friends, but for me, like dronester, when the bell rang for Thatcher, it rang ding dong.

First let me sincerely compliment you for both your eloquence and your largeness of spirit.Let me also say, in passing, that I don't see the conclusion of a decently lived life as an occasion dominated by sorrow. That is where we most acutely disagree, and that is why I welcome the bitter denunciations and the howls of protest at attempts to elevate her into a pantheon of great leadership: the evil that political leaders do does live on.Yes, in a better world, filled with better people, our common mortality would constitute an overarching bond of compassion for all. But that is not the world in which we find ourselves, and that is not the spirit that guided Thatcher's hand. With the proviso that she was certainly no Pol Pot, I would observe that castigating one of Pol Pot's victims for celebrating his death would be a petty exercise of better feeling.I don't feel joy at her death; I don't even feel a quiet satisfaction.I do feel determined to raise my voice as part of a chorus that says she did a great deal more harm than good--and it is essential to say so now, because this is the moment of her apotheosis.Whatever compassion I might owe her as a fellow mortal, I owe the living more.

...and that's a sentiment certainly cut from good Republican cloth. While I draw a line at advocating violence, I have considerable tolerance for intemperate speech: it reveals the nature of my foes and the passion of my allies.I suspect that dronester does not consider himself a liberal, even though conservatives use the label "liberal" for anyone to the left of Genghis Khan. While the Democratic congressional caucus contains a spectrum that ranges from near-Republicans to nearly-frank socialists, moderate Republicans have been hounded from the GOP by other Republicans.It is true that the right periodically offers up a black figure who speaks of the "liberal plantation" and "blacks...who slavishly follow the liberal line." Apparently, they have no idea how deeply offensive this rhetoric is. These transient figures gain considerable traction with a GOP base which feels that slavery has gotten a bum rap, but invariably implode because they simply do not represent the views of most Americans.They are certainly harshly criticized and quickly become electorally irrelevant because of their views: is that what you mean by "destroyed"?While elevating Reagan to political sainthood, the GOP has fallen far from one of his shrewdest political ideas: that the GOP should be a "big tent." He first espoused this in the 60s--just as the GOP began to implement the Southern strategy, using southern resentment of the civil rights movement to flip Democratic voters.The lack of tolerance on the right has become so extreme that the GOP now commands a single demographic: aging white men, generally of southern birth. Liberals didn't do this to conservatives; it is a self-inflicted wound.Given your claims, you should have no difficulty providing a list of conservative political leaders who have opposed hateful right wing rhetoric. For example, there must have been a clamorous chorus on the right denouncing the rabid birthers and their racial animus from the beginning. Conservative outrage over sly insinuations of a "2nd Amendment solution" to the Obama presidency was doubtlessly full throated.I missed all that. Perhaps you can help.NB: Dick Gregory's remarks on "a liberal scorned" were made from a perspective that, like dronester's, is well to the left of liberalism. He's also a nutrition kook and conspiracy monger (moon landings faked, 9/11 Truther), but those particular follies do seem to cross party lines.Full Disclosure: I worked as a volunteer during his 1968 campaign.

It seems to me that the UK has presently inherited the Thatcher whirlwind.Your economy is going down the toilet while your government gasps about the austere rightness of its passage.I don't know what could be more Thatcherite than that.