Apologies, but I need to snip for brevity and to address certain points without getting bogged down. I will attempt to retain as much context as possible.
No. His comments were directed at "extremist Republicans." Since that's what he said.
I don't know if you're aware of this, but under Gov. Cuomo, state taxes have been cut pretty significantly over the last three years. And there's been a whole mess of tax breaks for businesses under his administration (one of your articles was from 2011). NYS definitely had a problem with too high of taxation -- it's being brought into line with other economically similar states.
I think the left end of the spectrum has moved slightly over the last few years as a knee-jerk reaction to the disastrous policies of the Bush administration and the GOP when they ran the show exclusively for the first six years of this century. I don't think it's moved very far.
The perception of how far which parts of the political spectrum have moved is a subjective one, so there's really no right or wrong on that one. Safe to say that it's probably somewhere between the smaller move to the left that you believe and the greater move to the left that I believe.
So yesterday's centrists have now become the present right, just a matter of how much.
Cuomo specifically called out to: right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay
Why is wanting to preserve human life an extreme position?
Personally, I favor the right to chose, for myself and others, but never plan to use that right to terminate a life, as is still my right. But far be it for me to deny other the right to chose.
Why is pro-assault-weapon an extreme position?
I don't see it as one. I see it as a right to bear arms and 2nd amendment position. Do you realize that it is completely legal and legitimate right for any private citizen to own nearly any weapon system the US military has? It's true. No, I"m not saying that everyone should have a 105mm howitzer set up in their front yard, but the maintaining of the right is significant. Besides, the last statistics that I saw, assault rifles were the least weapon involved of all weapons used in murders. Why take that right away from citizens?
Anti-gay. You know what? I really don't care what adults do behind closed doors, and I don't think that it's the government's right to be involved or concerned about it either. Just don't shove it my face, is all I ask. Not in the streets. Not on the TV. Not in the movie theaters, unless I seek it out. Changing the context of a term that's been used for centuries to mean one thing, and twist is into a definition to mean something else just doesn't seem right to me. In the eyes of the law exactly equal not one iota difference, fine. Seems that we are overly pro-gay and anti-hetero rather than a reasonable balance between.
So who exactly was Cuomo addressing? Yeah, there are some nut jobs way over the line on somethings, and he's not tolerant enough to allow them to stay? Really?
