Smashmouth political correctness

Agreed, Rod. Sadly, I'm sure many of those telling Parker they'd prefer her dead to alive consider themselves staunch pro-lifers. Heaven help us.

This is what I was alluding to earlier when I wrote in another thread:

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"I just want to make an aside comment to all of this - can people just knock it off with the name-calling?

I just read Kathleen Parker's follow up column from last week, and she's been inundated with execrable hate mail. (I do think that Parker is over-the-top in describing those who disagree with her as "Stalinist" in the same breath that she laments how nasty our public dialogue has become.)

I disagree with Parker on her assessment of Palin, and I disagree with Rod's assessment, and I'm waiting to see how this all shakes out Thursday.

But I can express these thoughts in a civil tone, and so can we all. And dissident conservatives should be able to voice their opinions without fear of being called a "traitor" and the like. It's a free country."

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I've been wondering if some of the "I've always been a republican but now I'm voting for Obama" stuff that is appearing here from folks who have never published here before and don't have anything else to say aren't part of some movement to flood blogs. There has been all kinds of talk in left circles about the management of opinion and the supposed need for counter measures. This along with the democrats calls for applying a "fairness" doctrine to talk radio demonstrates a real challenge to freedom of speech.

OTOH, there is a marketplace of ideas and if someone makes their money on appealing to an audience and then offends that audience such that they stop buying the product, well that's freedom to. I was boycotting the Dixie Chicks before they made any political statements because they stink. If someone liked them before but were put off by the politics, they just might decide to pass on the concert tickets or a CD. I don't see how that is censorship.

It really bothers me with actors because ideally I'd like to forget who they are and let them become the charaters they are playing. When one these high school dropouts starts coming on like Noam Chomsky, it can make that impossible. I actually like some of Alec Baldwins work (coffee's for closers) but the political probably cuts down on my viewing of his work. I don't consider that censorship.

Rod, I agree with you. I think it's going to get ugly as this economic contraction takes place.

And both left and right would do well by the country by speaking out against those that traffic in less than honorable speech.

For example:

Freddoso book on Obama: Good. Honest. Should be debated.
Corsi book on Obama: Bad. Dishonest. Should be shunned.

Sean Hannity: Bad. Dishonest. Should be shunned.
Shepherd Smith: Good. Honest. Should be debated.

Randi Rhodes: Bad. Dishonest. Should be shunned.
Rachel Maddow: Good Honest. Should be debated.

Point being that there are people that go over the line, both on the left on the right, yet we often celebrate the Savages, Limbaughs, Coulters, Moores, Malloys of the world because "they're on our side."

A bit more intellectual honesty would help both sides.

The Internet is very good at amplifying the screeching harpies on both sides. I think with an economic contraction, fewer people will be unable to afford their Internet bill and things will get quieter.

Rod's post is in sync with thoughts I was having as I did some actual work, and warmed up some tortellini with green beans and tomatoes out of the back yard so Mr. Sig could have a quick bite between work and bell choir rehearsal at church.

Come what may, all the issues we're so exercised about right now will pass. God willing, most of us will still be alive ten years from now, and neither Obama nor McCain will still be president. But we'll still need our friends and neighbors, and our stomach linings, which hopefully will not have been mangled by churning political bile and acid. We'll also need calm and wisdom to work out ways to cooperate and get along even with those who don't agree with us to the last jot and tittle.

Are today's issues important? Sure--but they won't stand or fall based on how intensely we ranted and how vengefully we denounced, here or anywhere. I need to remind myself of this periodically, so I take the liberty to include the rest of you, and ask your forgiveness for preaching. ; ) Keep hold of what matters--love for the people in your life, kindness to your neighbors, and doing the work you care about. All those things will create a good future. Don't waste too much time spitting into the wind.

Oh PLEASE. I call BS. I am sick and tired of people who speak controversial things complaining when they get blowback. Tough noogies.

As far as freedom being in danger....barf. The First Amendment protects us from the GOVERNMENT......NOT private organizations. The private organization has every right to cancel her, they are exercising their First Amendment rights to NOT associate with Ms. Parker. The one thing I cannot stand is stupidity, it was very stupid for her to write her column and expect not to be canceled during a Presidential election cycle. Just like it was stupid for the Dixie Chicks to say what they said and expect their audience (mostly conservative) to not react. I understand how she "feels" the Dixie Chicks....they are both stupid!

I do dissent with the feeling here that this election is any more divisive than what I'm familiar with -- the past quarter century of presidential elections. I don't think it's any worse, and has been in some ways much more mild. For example, I certainly do not want to see Obama in the White House, and I'll be voting for McCain-Palin. But if Obama is elected, while I'll be upset, I won't be seething (as I would have if Al Gore had been selected through hack thuggery in Florida). For one thing, I now know that Obama will be completely constrained by the $700 billion bailout and will have to govern as a centrist, a la Clinton in '96, and won't be able to institute much of the social engineering his advisers had been banking on.

Look, metaphorically speaking Kathrine Parker kept a great big dog that she trained to bite "the enemy" in the form of liberals--her readers and fans loved her when she gave them permission to act out, they cheered her when she published the "letter" from her "military friend" advocating that major democratic figures should be "lined up and shot." Only public pressure from sane liberals forced her to change the online version to " lined up and slapped" a priceless correction that turned her macho, swaggering, green beret alter ego into slapstick. And lets not forget her column on how Barack Obama isn't a "full blooded American" which tilted and fell over into a pool of "ein volk, ein furer" without even pausing.

But that is not to say that, as a dyed in the wool liberal I think she is getting what she deserves. I don't. I think she is reaping what she sowed. She is actually in the same position as a woman who kept a large, agressive, pit bull in order to terrorize the neighborhood, who relished its strenght and its ugly brutality--until one morning the dog didn't recognize its master and took a bite out of her.

And Rod thinks the lesson learned is that *liberals* should stop responding to conservative talk shows? Because calling in to a talk show to discuss current affairs is some kind of attack on conservative radio shows and their professional screeners? Calling in to a radio show to express a preference for a political candidate and his policies is the equivalent of "Rope, Tree, Journalist--some assembly required?" or Ann Coulter saying she wished Tim McVeigh had blown up the New York Times Building?

Please, Rod, can you manage five minutes of honesty on your own blog and realize that the Conservative movement, and movement conservatives, have made a fetish out of attacking "the enemy" that has absolutely no parallel on the left side of the aisle. Do the names Lee Atwater and Karl Rove mean anything to you? You are eating your own and you are pointing the finger of blame at ordinary americans and democrats who, frankly, are able only to stand by in horror watching the disgusting spectacle.

aimai

Hi, Rod. Thanks for posting on this topic. The response to Kathleen Parker is appalling, but all too common.

To speak personally, I find it really disheartening that it is so hard for some of the commenters on this blog to disagree without being disagreeable and to have civil discussions without demonizing, patronizing, or dismissing the people with whom they disagree.

At least two commenters here in recent days "dismissed" me in rather offensive terms for posting opinions that disagreed with theirs.

I'm a person, they don't know me, and I do have feelings, and they do get hurt from time to time. I may not like it, but I'll get over it.

But, what I don't understand is how people can allow themselves to be so consumed with and warped by hatred for people they don't even know (especially for politicians) that they lose all perspective and are unable to allow the humanity of those with whom they disagree.

I never got the unreasoning rage of the Clinton-haters or the Bush-bashers for that reason, and I don't understand people who have to demonize McCain, Palin, or Obama in order to oppose them. I speak up when liberals I know do this and I speak up when conservatives do it, and I speak up when my mother does it.

sigaliris
I try to find comfort in the notion of geologic time, but I think you are failing to appreciate the significance of this moment. Many of us may not have the comfort of our home and our gardens in ten years, if we live in intemperate places or places where the water runs out. That doesn't mean that bickering on the internet brings us closer to meaningful solutions to the worlds problems. I certainly agree with you that bile just eats away at things. But complacency isn't really the answer either. This too won't pass, at least not in a benign way. So what do we do to engage meaningfully with those who care like we do but may disagree? That's the challenge we are called upon to face.

I agree wholeheartedly that pigheaded ideology and "me too" booster-ism is a pox on the political discourse in the USA. As a simple recognition of fact, it is fair to say that both the political left and the political right have their fair share of shrieking fools, demagogues, and would-be brownshirts.

That said, I have to disagree with your haloing blame for this particular episode onto Dems and their boosters. This is an instance of conservatives savaging other conservatives. Trying to equate this spectacle, cons wishing murder upon Parker en mass, to libs flooding political shows looking to argue on the behalf of their candidates is simply advancing a false equivalency. This is an attempt to defuse some of the ugliness of the situation by arguing that both sides do this. While there are people on the left who pine for violent retribution on their opponents, this kind of over-heated rhetoric is far more common on the right.

While I think your larger message is a valuable one, backbiting antagonism in the body politic is a cancer, I have to agree with the commenter(s) who point out that you need to first remove the beam from your eye before we remove the mote from ours. I don't know if you care, but this ugliness directed at Parker only reminds this liberal what a good portion of the conservative base thinks about us *all the time*. Your suggestion that the proper response lefties should have to this spectacle is to stop arguing and defending our leaders is just laughable. If the far right has no respect for their own mouth pieces, no respect for their opponents, and little-to-no respect for the law, then I don't think laying down and hoping for the best is going to change anything.

With respect.