Those mean spirited liberals (again)
Apr. 21st, 2005 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThis isn't really about liberals, unless it's the "liberal press."
Ann Coulter. I keep mentioning her when people tell me about how bad, mean and small minded, liberals are. I mention her because she ought to be poor. Why ought she suffer from a lack of money? Because the vitriol she poisons the national debate with is horrid.
I, of course, am mentioning her today because I just found out she was on the cover of Time. Ye gods and little fishes. I've been in the house all week, so it escaped me. What I've been seeing on the Web implies Time has been painting her as amusing, reasoned, in some way worthy of being on the cover of a national magazine, without being called to account for what she has said.
So what has she said?
Liberals ought to be killed.
That if one has to talk with a liberal (instead of just killing them), the best medium of communication is a baseball bat.
Tim McVeigh's real crime was not dropping his truck off at the NY Times building.
Being Liberal is treason.
That she wished the American military was killing reporters, by design.
That women are too stupid to vote.
That the real question about Clinton was, "whether to impeach, or assassinate."
Those who support her (and we now know that support is in the mainstream... not that most of us doubted it) have been on the side of Iraqis, the insurgents who killed an aid worker (if you can stomach it, the conversation here at Freep, is what I'm talking about. A sample.... "My bet, of course, is that she was so concerned about the decrease in US casualties that she misread the insurgents' orders of the day and forgat to avoid a place where she knew a blast would take place."). Great company she keeps.
On the flip side we hear how evil the Dems are. They actually think judges ought to be allowed to judge. The right is calling for them to be killed. Not just the kooks and the Militia types anymore, but the mainstream. At the recent confab they called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" a speaker quoted Stalin (you know, the guy the left is supposed to be guilty of not hating enough) Edwin Vieira, a lawyer and author of How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary, went even further, suggesting during a panel discussion that Joseph Stalin offered the best method for reining in the Supreme Court. "He had a slogan," Vieira said, "and it worked very well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man, no problem.'"
The complete Stalin quote is, "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Max Blumenthal in The Nation.
He said it twice. Just in case one has heard his explanation that he wasn't really trying to inspire another domemstic terrorist like Eric Rudolph, another attendee said something more explicit, Before I could introduce myself, he turned to me and another observer with a crooked smile and exclaimed, "I'm a radical! I'm a real extremist. I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!" This was no inbred twit from the back of beyond, no this was Michael Schwartz the chief of staff for Oklahoma's GOP Senator Tom Coburn, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Michael Moore, the present bogey-man used to paint the left as mean-spirited pales to insignificance compared to that. He calls Republicans liars and thieves. Tom DeLay calls him a political hack.
But he didn't call for anyone to kill Bush, he asked us to look at the record and turn him out of office.
On the subject of the Supreme Court... he said they made a bad decision, and called on us to turn out Bush, so that when new appointments were made, someone else would be making them.
Yep, when you compare him to Coulter, the Left sure looks mean.
Ann Coulter. I keep mentioning her when people tell me about how bad, mean and small minded, liberals are. I mention her because she ought to be poor. Why ought she suffer from a lack of money? Because the vitriol she poisons the national debate with is horrid.
I, of course, am mentioning her today because I just found out she was on the cover of Time. Ye gods and little fishes. I've been in the house all week, so it escaped me. What I've been seeing on the Web implies Time has been painting her as amusing, reasoned, in some way worthy of being on the cover of a national magazine, without being called to account for what she has said.
So what has she said?
Liberals ought to be killed.
That if one has to talk with a liberal (instead of just killing them), the best medium of communication is a baseball bat.
Tim McVeigh's real crime was not dropping his truck off at the NY Times building.
Being Liberal is treason.
That she wished the American military was killing reporters, by design.
That women are too stupid to vote.
That the real question about Clinton was, "whether to impeach, or assassinate."
Those who support her (and we now know that support is in the mainstream... not that most of us doubted it) have been on the side of Iraqis, the insurgents who killed an aid worker (if you can stomach it, the conversation here at Freep, is what I'm talking about. A sample.... "My bet, of course, is that she was so concerned about the decrease in US casualties that she misread the insurgents' orders of the day and forgat to avoid a place where she knew a blast would take place."). Great company she keeps.
On the flip side we hear how evil the Dems are. They actually think judges ought to be allowed to judge. The right is calling for them to be killed. Not just the kooks and the Militia types anymore, but the mainstream. At the recent confab they called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" a speaker quoted Stalin (you know, the guy the left is supposed to be guilty of not hating enough) Edwin Vieira, a lawyer and author of How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary, went even further, suggesting during a panel discussion that Joseph Stalin offered the best method for reining in the Supreme Court. "He had a slogan," Vieira said, "and it worked very well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man, no problem.'"
The complete Stalin quote is, "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Max Blumenthal in The Nation.
He said it twice. Just in case one has heard his explanation that he wasn't really trying to inspire another domemstic terrorist like Eric Rudolph, another attendee said something more explicit, Before I could introduce myself, he turned to me and another observer with a crooked smile and exclaimed, "I'm a radical! I'm a real extremist. I don't want to impeach judges. I want to impale them!" This was no inbred twit from the back of beyond, no this was Michael Schwartz the chief of staff for Oklahoma's GOP Senator Tom Coburn, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Michael Moore, the present bogey-man used to paint the left as mean-spirited pales to insignificance compared to that. He calls Republicans liars and thieves. Tom DeLay calls him a political hack.
But he didn't call for anyone to kill Bush, he asked us to look at the record and turn him out of office.
On the subject of the Supreme Court... he said they made a bad decision, and called on us to turn out Bush, so that when new appointments were made, someone else would be making them.
Yep, when you compare him to Coulter, the Left sure looks mean.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 03:51 pm (UTC)"'They're terrible people, liberals. They believe -- this can really summarize it all -- these are people who believe,' she said, now raising her voice, 'you can deliver a baby entirely except for the head, puncture the skull, suck the brains out and pronounce that a constitutional right has just been exercised. That really says it all.'"
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/19/coulter/print.html
That's not satire. That's not snark. That's her expressing her vicious opinion about liberals. About ME. Kindly provide examples of similar slander made by the Left.
And Coulter does in fact present her writing as factual, even though she has emitted some huge whoppers. Eric Alterman of The Nation points out that an entire cottage industry has sprung up to document her errors of fact. He does a lovely takedown of the Time whitewash of Coulter. I suggest you take a look at it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
Regarding Moore: I can only speak of F911, as that's the only movie of his I have seen. I am assuming you have seen it as well.He tried to connect the invasion of Afghanistan with a Unocal pipeline, which was ludicrous. But the other stuff? Bush did sit with a deer-in-the-headlights stare for 7 minutes as the second plane hit the tower. The Bush administration did mislead the nation about Iraq's nonexistent link to al Qaida. If you have any concrete examples of Moore's factual errors, I would like to hear them.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 04:16 pm (UTC)Because that seems to be the impression - it's just not been my experience.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 04:49 pm (UTC)Even when Moore makes specious arguments, he never stoops to Coulter's level of venom.
I HAVE seen gross generalizations amongst the very young on LJ, like ones who accuse all U.S. troops of war crimes--the kind that Ginmar has tangled with. Some of them have lectured me tendentiously about the Bush administration's record, as if I weren't already well acquainted with it. And that Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq appeared to be changing her story a lot. Alexander Cockburn of The Nation has apparently written anti-Semitic things, but I have not read them.
No figure on the left to my knowledge has been guilty of such outright lying, mischaracterization and advocating of violence as Coulter. Have you read the links I posted above? Coulter has said this:
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
--Ann Coulter as quoted in the New York Observer, Aug. 20, 2002
"RE: McVeigh quote. Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'"
--Ann Coulter, from an interview with Right Wing News
How can you defend that as "gross generalization" or satire, or snark? Please explain that to me.
So what has been your experience? I have requested examples from you. Do you have any of similar vitriol from the left? I also requested specific examples of Moore's factual errors. Can you provide them? I'm not interested in "impressions." I deal in facts. And WRT Coulter, the facts are not pretty.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 07:55 pm (UTC)And the way this 'discussion' has gone? I could go plowing thru the NYT and find equally nasty and slanderous things said about my 80 yr old right wing grandpaw, and y'all would still not consider the celebrtiy-polico's rhetoric equally bigoted and wrong.
I get the impression that spending a few hours pour over some really juicy nastiness, to ... what? make a point on line, with folks who can't even conceieve that for every right-wing offensive op-ed columbist, there's probably an eually offensive left wing one? Where the value in that at all?
There just is none, really. All it will do is make me even more disillusioned, and I might be up for that next week. I'll make an effort to remember in all seriousness.
But TK hon, no, I don't post in a vaccum. But I haven't here for months because this happened the last time I tried to as well.
You ain't convinced me you don't treat the right with the same distain you find offensive it twigettes like Coulter - and even a general discussion has me ... an apologist for abusers and slander a couple posts later.
After 6 years of this, I just don't have the stomach for it anymore. No, that's not right - I just don't have the heart.
You guys are more articulate, and you have more reliable link, but somehow... that condensation is almost more uncomfortable than the idgits calling me a racist, war mongering bitch who hates women for being... a christian.
You call that wrong? Well me too. Same as I call painting the entire right wing with the brush you use to tar Coulter. Both y'all even use the same damn words to describe one another. You object to her gross generalizations, but feel justfied using HER words to make them about the right.
I give up. I backed away from the right as 18 year old who dared vote for Clinton... only to find that the left seems to hate the right as much as the right hates them.
Silly me, I tried not to hate any of them. and I don't think it right to try to justify such things using the most extreem examples - like, I dunno -
political talking heads who make a living provoking people like you. ; )
I'm sorry - but I don't give a shit who's name you put up there. Left or right. Condemn it, by don't define others by it. That's what bothers me... and funny thing is, that's what seems to upset you guys so much about the lady in question.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 08:25 pm (UTC)I would. You may find it hard to believe, but I would.
I get the impression that spending a few hours pour over some really juicy nastiness, to ... what? make a point on line, with folks who can't even conceieve that for every right-wing offensive op-ed columbist, there's probably an eually offensive left wing one? Where the value in that at all?
If you can do that... show me an equivalence in 1: vitriol, 2: Prominence and 3: (this is the important part, the part which I rail about, the part which makes the Limbaugh's, the Savages, the Randall Terrys and the Coulters so worrisome and offensive to me) the casual acceptance that such comment is acceptable, even "funny" and "witty" I will agree with you, and my posts on the subject will stop.
But what I see, and continue to see, is the Ward Churchills being condemned by left and right, and the Coulters praised by the right.
I call painting the entire right wing with the brush you use to tar Coulter.
What I accuse the Right of doing is enabling Coulter. Of allowing her to spout off without check, of, in fact, paying her millions of dollars to say the things she says. Of rewarding her for making reasoned discourse in the country less popular.
Of encouraging, by their silence (calling Rev. Neimuller) making it possible, as I quoted, for the Chief of Staff for a Senator to say he wants to impale judges. That's not someone on the far right, camped out in the woods waiting for the Feds to come with their black helicopters to make his house another Ruby Ridge, that's the primary counselor to one of our Senators.
That bothers me. That Coulter's rhetoric makes it more acceptable, that bothers me too.
I'm sorry that this is casting a pall over your birthday. I am, but until you can show me (as you keep saying is rampant) the equivalant on the other side, I'm going to keep calling people like Coulter a blight on the nation.
TK
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 08:43 pm (UTC)In a vcountry with 280 million... nothing is going to be roundly condemned - I give you NAMBLA for that example.
And hon - it ain't the birthday. My gawd, I could give two shits over that. It's just that reading that stuff again would only make me sadder in a sad week already: Found out Tuesdaymy little sister will need a kidney sometime this year. I don't need to re-read how evil conservatives are right now - those same folks who spent their lunch hours down at OSU getting blood tests. Beth has had over 40 dead fucking serious offers of kidneys. Reading that shit right now, just to convince you it actually exists in equally prominent places?
I don't trust my own inability to withstand bias right now. Not where my baby sister is concerned. I gues that's in part why I even had the nerve to disagree now - because it sure seemed like your post up these is just as full of right wing stereotypes as coulter is of left ones... and one of those Bush voters will likely be cut in half to save her life, if they decide I ain't been cancer free lonmg enough.
The coulters, the dowds, the Terrys(I'm sorry, but who IS he?? I don't know! It sounds familiar but I have no idea...) - to even acknowledge that anything those idgits say this week just seems trivial. They all make their money casting honest, god fearing, country loving people as wicked, ignorant, or worse. For myself - I refuse to let them color my opinion of those they malign, or those they claim to represent.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 09:12 pm (UTC)You are insulted that Terry called you an apologist for Coulter, but you downplayed as a "generalization" Coulter's patently false and inflammatory quote how liberals are evil and think people should be allowed to kill babies during delivery. What am I supposed to think?
"You guys are more articulate, and you have more reliable link, but somehow... that condensation is almost more uncomfortable than the idgits calling me a racist, war mongering bitch who hates women for being... a christian."
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. The fact that our documentation is reliable should tell you something.
"You ain't convinced me you don't treat the right with the same distain you find offensive it twigettes like Coulter"
I assume you meant "the left" in that sentence. In any case, that statement is false. For example, Christopher Hitchens, a self-proclaimed leftist, has tried to paint opponents of the British holocaust denier David Irving as being censors:
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/02/07/lipstadt/index1.html
I repudiate Hitchens and will be letting the Atlantic Monthly know that I don't appreciate his being on their masthead. Even so, Hitchens has never called on people to blow up buildings, as Coulter has.
"You object to her gross generalizations, but feel justfied using HER words to make them about the right."
That is another argument from assertion.
You have chosen to make assertions that you are completely unable to back up with facts, and you have gotten defensive and resorted to ad hominem statements when called on it. If you are unable to marshal a convincing argument to support your opinion, has it not occurred to you that your opinion may be incorrect? You have been shown example after example of ways that the far right has committed slander and poisoned public discourse. And I don't tar all conservatives with the same brush as Coulter. Actually, it is a misnomer to call her conservative. She is one of the most prominent examples of the neo-fascism that has taken root in our country in the past 30 years. I suggest you acquaint yourself with David Neiwert's excellent blog:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
If your previous comments in Terry's journal were anything like your statements in this post, then I am not surprised that you received a negative reaction.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 09:44 pm (UTC)No hon - Im not gonna address the rest because it would put me in a foul mood. It's not a matter of can't do it - it's just a matter of inclination today.
I've not got the necessary motivation to go pull them up - even if they are right there in outlook.
Doing so would involve exposing myself to some pretty nasty comments about people who spent their time THIS WEEK finding out if they're a match: My little sister needs a kidney. We found out Tuesday that transplant isn't not a maybe anymore.
Funny thing is, the first people to pspend their lunch getting a lood test were mom's co-worker's at the church. You know, dead serious about giving a kidney to a girl they don't know, who doesn't go to church, and voted for Kerry.
Finding gross generalization about those people would only make me unfairly biased - so this is what the left thinks of the people who are willing to save my baby girls life? Lovely.
Forgive me, but proving what IMHO is an obvious point here is just not worth it. And your response tells me that even if I did? It would mean nothing anyway - if you cannot conceive even the hypothetical as being possible, than any evidence *I* might bring to the table will only be 'taken ot of context' or somehow not on the same level...
I'm afraid that finding them for teek might be worth it, because he's bothered to at least rad me once or twice. Instict tells me I'd only be unintentionally giving you more ammo.
Anyhow, have a nice weekend guys. All y'all. :)
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-22 09:46 pm (UTC)Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-23 01:16 am (UTC)I am truly sorry that your sister needs a kidney and wish her the best. I have no trouble believing that conservative folk would step up to the plate to help out someone they don't even know. I should know: my whole family is conservative.
If you had read my posts more carefully, you would see that I never called conservatives evil. Coulter is not conservative, she is a disguised neo-fascist whose ideas have filtered into the mainstream. I criticize her and the right-wing media that coddle her.
All you have done is put words in my mouth and utterly failed to support your arguments. Apparently you are incapable of recognizing that.
Nymphette is incapable of doing anything
Date: 2005-04-23 01:20 pm (UTC)I mean, who *doesn't* look after their own relatives? "Even the gentiles do as much," said Jesus, when speaking of the need to take care of *strangers* and *enemies* equally. This doesn't make conservatives superhumanly virtuous - ISTR the most important medals are given for going "above and beyond", as opposed to the ones you get for just showing up and not screwing up egregiously.
And whose life *doesn't* suck, in manifold ways, particularly among those of us who are poor? (I myself nearly died year before last from a jaw infection - my life was saved not by my conservative Xtian relatives, who were useless, but by athiest and agnostic friends.) Who doesn't have problems? Sometimes, yes, this is a legitimate excuse for discontinuing an argument. But for it to be consistent policy for nearly a year, that gets a little old. The day I can't go find a link or two, to back up a claim - bury me.
And if someone's going to keep playing this game, my personal opinion is that s/he shouldn't start arguments.
IOW - no, it's not you, ad_kay...
Re: Nymphette is incapable of doing anything
Date: 2005-04-23 02:54 pm (UTC)Gotta love the analysis of strangers though. "Ah, she has no wish to spend a workday & Friday evening searching for the nastiest liberal bigotray online? She has ceased to live!"
I try to forget that kind of thing when I come across it - it has no value but to bring prejudice and bias or worse to those who embrace it. and the way you people have respond certainly does not convince me there would be any value in finding it FOR you.
if I change me mind, I'll bring you some. But in the mean time, it's simply not worth it reading again. If there was any evidence here it might foster greater understanding and comradery between political opponents? Maybe. I see it from teeks, and I might send him some stuff via email. I kinda trust him not to go on the attack.
Ah well, you learn from everything, these sorta things too.
Re: Nymphette is incapable of doing anything
Date: 2005-04-23 02:58 pm (UTC)Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-23 02:45 pm (UTC)I did NOT try to put wors in your mouth - talk about reading posts more carefully. For the love of God, I did not feel like digging thru thirty 30 + op-ed that stereotype the right as ridculously as people like Coulter stereotype those on the left, after a nasty week - just to proove such nastiness even exists. What freaking planet are you on?
If it makes ya feel better to think I'm incapable of it, then by all means, abide by that analysis in the response below - whatever makes you happy dear. I thought you at least deserved a response saying "hey, I think it's pretty damn easy to find, but frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I don't care enough about helping you find it to bother exposing myself to it - again - *this* week. Maybe later, if I remeber this conversation long enough to give two shits about it."
Thought the honest explanation would be the best - My bad. You're right. I didn't spend a few hours reading nasty exaggeration for effect to 'support' my 'arguement' with some stranger on line who isn't even particularly nice about things. If you can't believe that it's possible conservative out there read things they find just as insulting and over the top as you find Coulter, well, that's not axactly uncommon on either side, from this perspective. Just a bit more evidence that y'all both are far more alike than either of you will ever admit to being.
Teeks, I'll go back to lurking, thanks. You kids have fun.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-23 02:55 pm (UTC)You are a troll, and I am done with you.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-23 03:06 pm (UTC)But I gotta say - in a week where my family has just lost it, and I dont want to read horrible crap that will more than likely leave me intears again? You're the only one claiming it's a shamelss manipulation thing, and insulting me for it.
I was actually TRYING to be honest with you guys. Be a little bit real. You demanded I bring 'proof' of my opinion, and I said, maybe later, and y'all accuse me of being incapable of it or worse.
incoherant posts? Hon, if you have already made up your mind about what I am about, there was never a chance youd understand them anyway.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-23 08:44 pm (UTC)Oh, for heaven's sake. If you're feeling emotionally fragile because terrible things are happening to your family, don't start fights on other people's journals. If you start a fight and then realize you're too emotionally fragile to finish it, just bow out - don't keep trying to have the last word. Accept that if you're not feeling able to prolong an argument, you're the one who needs to end it.
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-24 02:18 am (UTC)Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-25 03:11 pm (UTC)Surely if it is as easy as you say it is, you have spent more time and effort saying "nuh uh, not gonna" than you would have spent actually doing it in the first place?
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-25 04:19 pm (UTC)Last friday, I was at work. Got the impression TL was painting the right with the same braod strokes Coulter uses to paint the left.
While at work, I didn't feel like reading op eds to find equally henious things said about the right because, well, they're being wonderful to my fam lately. I know that reading that kind of imflammatory stuff would only upset me more. The assumptions made about me didn't exactly endear me to the task of trying to find common ground with folks here. Now I'm an Apologist for 'any abuser'? Please.
Your other reply even say 'If you on the right...' - did you mean me? That's not accurate either, hon.
Anyhow, this discussion has actually shed light on something that's been bugging me the last couple years. That word - incoherants. I've noticed it a couple times - it's used in discussion when someone can't - or won't - understand the perspective of the person they are addressing. It's the all powerful trump card - "I don't have to REALLY respond to you, and the issues you bring up, because your arugument is INCOHERANT."
Before the last election, I was part of a discussion on an extreemly left wing forum. That word kept kept popping up - and until this little exercize, I hadn't noticed what it's really used for:
I see a group of folks here totally unwilling to even hypothetically consider that there are equally outrageous liberal op-ed columnists out there that offend right wingers. Not unless I personally dig thru piles of it and find them *for you*.
Excuse me, I shared my opinion with Teeks - I'm not sure WHAT that means I owe him, but I'm pretty certain it doesn't mean that I need to get him piles of bigoted left wing 'evidence' within x number of hours.
It kills me, I tried to just be real and honest with you guy... hey, it's been ugly this week, can I take a rain check without 20 emails about my incoherance and incapability to *respond* pop up? Apparently not - honesty is SHAMELESS! Manipulative! Distainful! Even the troll word showed up. I actually chuckled at that - I'm almost afraid to POST in this LJ, because I'm such a softy. I cry at sappy commercials. I HATE the division in this country over politics. It's one reason I try to point out that hey - BOTH sides have reason to be angry at the other, these days. No one has a monopoly on nastiness anymore. : (
Anyhow, I wish it was in me to apologize for having better things to do. I spend my Friday working for the most part - instead of reading the NYT FOR you guys. I spent the weekend celebrating life with my family and friends, instead of appeasing the people in TK's LJ with links to shock-columnists who make a living being bigots.
I simply must get my priorities back in order... ; )
Re: From the middle
Date: 2005-04-26 03:20 am (UTC)I'm willing to admit that there are plenty of people on the left out there who talk terrible bullshit. There are also people who live in holes in the ground.
But I read the NYT, and I ain't seen anyone like Coulter. I've never seen anyone say that Conservatives should be killed, or that Ann Coulter should have been bombed by Tim McVeigh. I've watched Fox opinion slots and been struck dumb by the sheer level of rage, not to mention the distortions of fact and the outright audacious lies. I've listened to Limbaugh and had to turn off because he made me sick.
You don't even have to link to a column. Just give us a name and we'll let google do the rest if it doesn't ring a bell. Name a left-liberal pundit who's said that we should kill conservatives and who gets even half the screen-time Coulter does. Just one. If they're so common, that shouldn't be an arduous task at all, should it?