Nope, no haters on the left
Commenter Teri Pittman offers some quotes from someone named Mark in something called the “Kalimba Magic Newsletter,” to the effect that it’s only on the right that violent rhetoric occurs: “I don’t remember anyone joking about killing president Bush.”
Well, either Mark has a very selective memory, or he’s been in another world for the last ten years. But Mark is an ordinary citizen. What’s Joan Walsh’s excuse?
Joan Walsh is a liberal columnist and editor at Salon. She was recently accused by blogger Ace of truncating an Obama quote in order to make it seem less critical of the left’s heated rhetoric as well as the right’s—or, as Ace puts it:
So it is with Obama and the high priests of the Worshipful Media. The high priests have decided that their hero-god is a bit potty lately, and so they must correct his spaketh-ings so they become inerrantly perfect, as they should be, as the Sacred Scrolls prophecized.
This is not just a post-Tucson crusade of Walsh’s. Back in April of 2010, she made these risible remarks on MSNBC [unfortunately the sound is a bit out of sync]:
The Left is either delusional or pathologic liars.
Tom: why not both?
I’m flabbergasted.
wow.
Does she write from her kitchen counter and never leave the house?
I see it coming into work!
Agreed, Neo. I was thinking some fall into one category, some the other. But there is indeed the wonderful middle, possessed of both features.
Trouble is, as Jared of Tucson serves to remind, delusional is tough at best to treat, and path. lying is possibly congenital. Holding the double dose may qualify one for high office.
The high priests have decided that their hero-god is a bit potty lately, and so they must correct his spaketh-ings so they become inerrantly perfect, as they should be, as the Sacred Scrolls prophecized.
Liberal hadith.
Fascinating interaction between Mika (is that her name?) and Joan Walsh.
This woman at least has the excuse of being ignorant. There was a doctor/writer at Psychology Today who wrote a blog post right after the Tucson shooting that made substantially the same argument.
I don’t have the link on me, so apologies.
My hypothesis has always been that the original sin, so to speak, of contemporary liberalism was its failure to repudiate communism. They had a go at it up to JFK and arguably even up to LBJ, but after McGovern the waters were muddied and are now so gloopy and coagulated that they resemble, frankly, cesspools. Hence the unfortunate tendency of the left to use all the rhetorical tropes of the red propaganda of yore. By and large, they know not what they do.
The complete sublimation of total naivete and utter cynicism in the left of today is a stupendous achievement.
Kolnai, the sublimation of naivete and cynicism could be looked at as an iteration of the Hegelian dialectic whose product is/will be _____________?
The fake documentary ‘The Death of a President’ on the UK’s Channel 4. ‘Nough said.
The proggies have such short term memory loss. ‘ChimpyMcBushHitler’ anyone?
I’m going to answer my above question because I don’t want the answer too far down the script.
The answer is: Offal. (Get it?)
20 years from now that tape will be pulled out as proof to a later era of what lies about the past have been told.
If they could turn someone who came up with a state/charity funded apparatus for genocide of large portions of the population by design.
Who published as guest author the man who came up with the final solution in her eugenics paper (not to be confused with Moses Harman’s eugenics paper with a sinister prior name). Then some how change the original name from “negro project” to “planned parenthood” and turn it into a sacred thing that no one can touch as its a ‘woman’s’ thing. And nearly scrubbed all of the negative of the history away (and would have sans internet and ‘collective memory’ of the proletariat and their bourgeoisie collecting).
so when you see anything they do, remember they know what happened to so many others who were on the losing side and now never existed.
a very interesting page on it here…
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/classes/csci_2101/false.html
Curtis – yes yes, I was thinking that too, and all I knew was that it was a stupendous achievement.
Naivete + Cynicism = ???
Hm… I’m no Einstein, but I’d say something like “Adolescence.”
I’m not being entirely cheeky either – there’s something to the idea that the rise of leftist utopianism correlates (at least) with the explosive growth of industrialism, and hence with the drastic change in life expectations, both in terms of longevity and of standard of living. “Adolescence” as a concept really didn’t exist until sometime amid the maturing of the industrial revolution, but as a phenomenon it probably preceded the concept by a few decades.
Still, the French Revolution is kind of a counter to my solution to the equation, and cretins like Gracchus Babeuf and Marat didn’t have, to my knowledge, any phenomenon of concept of adolescence to explain them.
Though Francois Furet argued that there really was a difference in kind between 1798 and the Bolshevik Revolution (while being pretty sour on both, nonetheless) – I’m not sure about that. The answer to the equation probably lies in whatever the heck was going on with those Jacobin head-hunters, and those Communist Babeufians. They certainly did have that Hegelian sublimation of naivete and cynicism – but what it issues in…
Ya got me.
well put
Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others.. Babeuf
Well, I guess you haven’t got the latest decoder ring.
I’m being very tongue in cheek I hope you know.
Thanks for the Babeuf reference. Looked him up on the ole Wiki. Here’s a quote from Gracchus:
“Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others.”
Gee, that sounds a lot like Obama. Seems humanity hasn’t done much “evolving.”
Some folks think, for some reason, that all we know is what they tell us. I mean, besides professors.
Jeez.
Keith Olbermann has been fired from MSNBC. Drudge and Ace both are reporting it.
This sentence in the Yahoo news story about Olbermann made me chuckle:
He could give a boost to struggling CNN’s prime-time lineup, but Olbermann would mean CNN would make an abrupt shift in its nonpartisan policy.
CNN is non-partisan and now twinkies are good for you.
I had the chance to talk to dozens of war protesters when the fighting began. My doctor’s office was one street over from a college. Their logic all seemed to boil down to “I hate President Bush”. This took several steps in logic for some, but it was scary how many went to that reason right away. I always asked if they would continue to protest if a Democrat got into office. The answer was always OF COURSE !!! I now see no anti-war protesters. I guess war is only important at certain times – and they of course support the troops. Strange days indeed.
Actually, Bolsheviks take Jacobin’s language and practices as gospel and quite consciously tried to emulate them. In literature of this epoch this is reflected beyond any doubt.
FYI, Mark is the owner of Kalimba Magic. It’s a nice little business and I really wish him well. It seems like he just has blinders on. I honestly think that a lot on the Left just don’t understand what in their name.
What all this reminds me of is the Civil War, when people had fixed positions and the rhetoric was even more heated. We are headed for something like that, if we can’t find a way to tone it down on both sides.
As was the case with the Civil War, sometimes there is no compromise position. Do states have a right to secede or not? I happen to think they did, but might makes right. In the case of today, does the government have the obligation to take care of the individual and to control his/her life to meet that end? Or, conversely, do individuals (with families and communities) have an obligation to take care of themselves? There is no real logical mid point on that.
OLBERMAN OUT AT PMSNBC…!
Ain’t had this much FUN since them Hogs ate baby sister !
Teri Pittman Says:
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:47 am
I don’t mean to single you out for criticism, Teri, but I want to take issue with your “both sides” statement.
First, a little background: We have all been taught that the political spectrum has Communists on the far left, Nazis on the far right, and “democracy” in the middle. I completely reject that, as it is not accurate.
I see the spectrum as having the various flavors of totalitarianism on the far left. These include Communism, Nazism, and Maoism. More moderate forms of government would be Socialism and Fascism, which would be more towards the middle. The far right would be anarchists, who advocate no government at all. I would place America’s Founders, who wanted strictly limited and circumscribed government, towards the right side of the spectrum, but not all the way to the far right.
So here’s where I have a problem with “both sides”: The left will never be satisfied until they have all of us under their complete control. History shows that they are quite capable of “liquidating” anyone who stands in their way.
The right just wants the left to get out of our faces and leave us alone. We don’t want to exterminate leftists; we just think they need to be removed from positions of power over us. They can work as janitors and maids, but not as university professors and directors of government regulatory agencies.
ricl, while your description of political spectrum is more adequate that common view to see Nazi as far right and Communists as far left, but it is still unsatisfactory. We just can not describe now the whole multitude of political and philosophical attitudes according placement of representatives in French Convent. American Revolution created its own perspective and ethos, quite different from everything existing in continental Europe and even England of the end of 18 century. In modern terms, Founders were neither liberals nor conservatives, and even not “moderates” on this scale, but libertarians, to whom liberty was value in itself, not something subordinate to identity, community ties and tradition (a conservative position), but also not subordinate to universal ethical collectivism imposed by government (liberal position). Individualism was central to this worldview, but not of anarchistic or nihilistic variety, but moderated and restricted by laws and moral, that were considered universal (idea of “natural right”, independent of tribal tradition). American exceptionalism rejects possibility of defining it in terms of right-left opposition.
So here’s where I have a problem with “both sides”: The left will never be satisfied until they have all of us under their complete control. History shows that they are quite capable of “liquidating” anyone who stands in their way.
I t was thinking in terms of some of Ann Coulter’s statements on the right, when I made that comment. I do feel like people should have the ability to speak their minds, without being tagged as politically incorrect or racist. I understand that political rhetoric gets heated because that’s what gets the votes. We don’t seem to be able to leave it behind when the election is over.
My boyfriend and best friend are Obama supporters. I like to think that I’ve at least been able to show them that there is some thought on the other side of the political spectrum. I may be making some progress with the boyfriend. He’s taped Sarah Palin’s Alaska for me. Guess this means I’ll have to listen to the next Obama speech.
Strictly speaking, the Left didn’t joke about killing President G. W. Bush. They fantasized about it and obsessed over it.
Squeaky’s gun mis-fired. But I attribute that scenario to Manson, not the left.
The left still equates the term Nazi with far right. I see it everywhere I read, and with those I speak with. And as we all know, it is not true. They know it too, except for the useful idiots.
To this day, people believe our own Civil War was about freeing slaves. To solve all that, American history before – 1870, I believe? – is just not going to be taught anymore. I suppose rubbing out where we came from will make it much easier to re-direct where we are going.
And Sherman? He should have been hung, and drawn and quartered. Can you imagine the cries from the left were that type of warfare to be carried out in this day and age, as was done during his “march to the sea”?
It’s a hoot though. The democrats that kept slavery in place back then perpetrate it still. I am forever amazed at how they slowly pulled it off, and how it is not seen by those kept in check from ever being who they could on there own (the only way it really happens).
Oops. Their own