Those mean spirited liberals (again)

[pecunium]

This 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.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nymphette_/]

You know, I almost went digging for equally steroetypical quotes for TK from the NYT... until I realized that in one post, you already decided my perspective is painfully skewed.

I waste to much of my time as it is. This is a hopeless endeavor I'm not even going to bother with today -

If there was even a hint y'all hadn't already decided what my views are, I might, but this happened the last time I dared share an opinion here to. I'm done.

Have fun kids - and as a word to the wise, I'd throw fewer pies. You're only giving people like Coulter more ammo with those kinda stunts. I know she's fun to wank on, but such behavoir tends to bother those of us who think even people we disagree with are entitled to, ya know, a shred of respect.

Sorry for interrupting your Hate Ann Coulter party by trying to stick up for those on the right who's colors clash with the brush y'all are painting them with.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

nymphette If you can provide the stereotypcial quotes, in context, you might convince me, and some others, that the Left is just as bad as the right.

We haven't decided your views in a vaccuum. You have consistently, repeatedly here, and in your LJ expressed them. That we take what you have said at face value isn't unfair, it's what we expect people to do.

As for the last bit, about giving respect to those with whom you disagree... where is that in the people you are defending?

Where is the respect in calling a man who gave three limbs for his country a coward and a traitor?

If I was as knee-jerk as you have accused me of being, that single thing would be insurrmountable. That's some swell support for the troops. Question, no not even question, dismiss; with extreme prejudice, the sacrifice of body parts, and say he is treasonous because he is on the other side of the aisle.

Coulter, and Rush, and Savage, and Brooks, (the last two of which get big play on the Op-Ed pages of the NYT), and the Hannitys, and Norths, and the Malkins offend me because they don't believe in the idea of a loyal opposition.

They say I am unpatriotic, even treasonous. They have not done anything, in the years I've been watching and reading them (and that goes back to watching Oliver North, in uniform; under oath, lie to Congress, for days; and the boast about it) to make me think they don't mean it.

When the song stays the same, and when they are asked to explain themselves; and do so by saying they did mean it (as with Coulter and the NYT statement) I have to assume they mean what they say.

Why shouldn't I take them (with the possible exception of Ollie North) at their word?

TK

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

According to Coulter, because I am a liberal, I believe that it's OK to murder a near-term infant. (See direct quote downthread).

You tried to minimize her statement by caling it a "gross generalization" instead of the hateful slander it is.

If anything, I'm the one who should feel offended, not you.

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

There are plenty on the right who I have a lot of respect for.

But they don't run the Republican Party and, by and large, they don't write the influential articles in newspapers and magazines.

Frankly, in denouncing the idiots at the top of the food chain, I rather think that I may be doing even a little something to maybe get back to the days when conservatism was actually conservative and where it was possible to vote GOP without tacitly putting the seal of approval on deficit spending that would make Keynes shudder, the torture of POWs and congressional overreach into personal decisions about sex and death.

It's sad for both the right and the left that at the moment the Democrats are becoming the party of States' Rights and Balanced Budgets, the party that opposes torture and thinks people should have a decent standard of healthcare even if they lose their jobs. I could never vote Republican, but there are Republicans whose views I can argue with coherently and rationally and agree to disagree, whose voices are of benefit to the political dialogue, despite my disagreement. Seb Holsclaw and Von at Obsidian Wings being amongst the prime examples.

Coulter and Malkin and Hannity's voices are not these things. They are the voice of the new vocal movement that has taken over the GOP, the Moralising, big government, over-spending liars.

Unfortunately, this path seems to garner votes. So people do listen to DeLay and Frist and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Coulter and Hannity, and vote accordingly. And one gets the impression that if these people were a genuine liability for votes on the right, they would not be so free to plant their lips on the rectum of Mr Rove and Mr Bush. So sensible Republicanism, of the sort I can respect and appreciate, is unfortunately losing in the marketplace of ideas, and it's left to the Democrats to pick up the few sensible bits and pieces and use them to attract the people in the middle.

At the end of the day, you on the right can either reject these cretins, or they will be associated with you. If you choose not to, that's your choice.