Do you have any idea how many times you've made posts accusing liberals of being crazy radicals?
I have him on ignore, but I think you missed the appropriate response, which I had posted:
To discuss who is radical requires being somewhat informed, hence why people like Eaglekeeper can't discuss it.
It doesn't really matter how many times someone ignorant has used the term.
For such ignorant people, 'radical' is just name-calling like 'poopyhead'. They have no idea what different 'sides' that are not radical are, versus what 'radical' is.
Of course, the word is largely relativist. 'Democracy' is a core value of the US, but would have been 'radical' in 1300 England. Black equality a core value now, radical in 1825 US.
If the radical 4 Justices prevail in shifting the court to the now-radical Federalist Society type values and the country accepts it - they'd be radical now but no longer later.
Paul Krugman wrote a piece about Henry Kissinger's doctoral thesis, of all people, that people in 'stable democracies' tend not to be able to deal well at recognizing radical forces that crop up. They try to respond with 'civil disagreement' that has no effect while the new radical forces keep making changes. He was writing about a society like France hundreds of years ago, Krugman applied it to the Bush administration's radical doctrines.
Most citizens are unaware of the radical nature of the radical 4 on the court - they just assume 'oh, those are the conservatives'. The press buys into this, constantly labeling the 4 on the other side - largely appointed by 'conservative Republicans' - not 'moderates', but 'liberals', not because they're 'liberal' but simply to fit the 'conservative-liberal' split.
What is 'radical' at one point - say, the security policies of the 'Patriot II' Act the Bush justice department wanted which which was not passed - can become 'normal', merely 'the conservative side of the debate'. When Joe McCarthy led a movement that blacklisted many Americans who refused to incriminate their friends for possibly having had left-wing views, that was 'just the conservative side' at most at the time to many Americans; today, it can look radical.
The difference between those was what Edward R. Murrow was attempting to educate the people about - saying 'this is not legitimate American politics, we are throwing a good American out of the US military because his sister subscribed to a left-wing magazine', and he shifted a lot of public opinion eventually. In the meantime, a lot of the public attacked him defending McCarthy, losing him sponsors and harming his own career in the media - though later people were grateful.
Just as McCarthy's approach did not not seem 'radical' at the time to many - to the ignorant - today's radical right 4 justices is similarly not seeming radical to ignorant people.
They just throw the word around.
It's funny, I've called them the radical 4 for years; a couple nights on MSNBC, Howard Dean used the same word for them. I think he's right, of course.
You don't see him using the word for just being in disagreement with him, though unfortunately more and more behavior by the right is radical.
Paul Ryan's budget is radical, destroying Medicare as we know it to move away from the trend to doing what the rest of the world has done with largely eliminating private healthcare insurance, instead reducing their benefits and shifting back to private healthcare insurance after several decades of Medicare and Medicaid. And yes, Medicare and Medicaid themselves at one point would be as 'radical' - but a good radical. Just as the US creating limited and elected government was 'radical' at the time.
What matters is the radical nature of these justices' opinion, their agenda, not how many times an ignorant poster has misused the word.
Republicans wanting some cuts in spending - wrong as they might be - doesn't meant they're radical. Blackmailing the nation's economy by voting not to pay our bills to try to get their demand, that is radical.
Anthony Kennedy is a 'conservative' justice. Robert Bork was a 'radical' justice. Bork disagreed with basic rulings and interpretations of the constitution long held by the court; his America was a very different one.
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