Goodbye to All That — 2004-2007
The Age of No Civility
Such a weird era that was, when British liberals wrote letters to those in Ohio, beseeching Americans to vote against George Bush in the key battleground state. I recall an op-ed, widely circulated in 2004, in the Guardian by one Charles Brooker, with the infamous line, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, Jr. — where are you now that we need you?” Did Oprah deplore that climate of violence? Was that “very disrespectful”?
John Glenn (“the old Hitler business”), Al Gore (“digital brownshirts”), and Senator Robert Byrd all evoked brownshirts and Nazis, in George Soros fashion, to demonize the president of the United States. Do we even remember how Cindy Sheehan and her rantings, often virulently anti-Semitic, were found useful by the Democratic Party? Hollywood made in those years a succession of money-losing, poorly scripted propaganda films on Iraq. Do we recall some of them (and why did the genre die after January 2009?) — In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Lions for Lambs, Redacted? Do we recall the legion of those who clamored to go into Iraq and in that era suddenly were blaming others for spoiling their three-week victory and not finding arsenals of WMD — as if the Congress had not voted for twenty-three reasons to authorize the war?
My god, I do remember 2007, when the New York Times gave a discount to MoveOn.org for the ad hominem “General Betray Us” ad. Hillary that day suggested the general’s testimony required a suspicion of disbelief. Barack Obama assured us the surge had failed, and Joe Biden lectured Petraeus on trisecting Iraq — in the days before Iraq became, in Biden’s words, “our greatest achievement.”
Yes, yes, I remember those eerie times well. There was Jonathan Chait’s New Republic essay about why “I hate President George W. Bush.” (Oprah, where were you?) Garrison Keillor was more clever in his hate of Bush’s Republicans: “brown shirts in pinstripes.” Howard Dean, likewise now angry over the incivility of today’s politics, in that era declaimed, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.” Do we recall the NAACP chairman of the time, civil rights movement veteran Julian Bond, saying of Bush & Co.: “Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side”? (Oprah, where were you?)
So yes, bring on the new civility. Let us by all means respect the president and his office, and focus on his policies, not the person, agreeing when we can, disagreeing when we must. But, please, let us also never forget that not long ago things were not as they are now. Not by a long shot.
VDH: Somewhere, at sometime, a Socialists will mention the difference between those statements towards President Bush and the relatively mild statments regarding President Obama, and clearly explaining to us dolts and dunces that those statements about Bush were acceptable.
Of course, my explanation implies that there were some nasty statements made against Bush, and obviously I must be wrong, of course.
However, Oprah’s attitude goes along with those who consider that any criticism of Obama must be the result of racism of the worst kind.
I guees that if we can get through the next many months until November, 2012, we’ll survive. But, then I fully expect that Obama will not allow we the people to vote him out. His 2008 calls for a civilian nationa security force are still to fresh and especially that Obama has never been a man of the people and certainly doesn’t understand the freedom and rights we Americans have.
We are Americans only because of our Constitution and other founding documents and Americans we must remain.
Cheers and keep your powder dry and tools clean.
too bad bush and cheney aren’t black,
this would all be a moot matter…
Actually, no. Just look at how poorly Justice Thomas is treated. Dollars to donuts that if Herman Cain or Allan West were to become part of the national Republican ticket in 2012, the assaults they will endure from the “civil” demo-corrupts, their lefty “non-violent” useful idiots and their lackeys in the Make-Believe-Media will make the tribulations endured by Jackie Robinson in 1947 look like a quiet lunch with Oprah.
The real difference… Bush had the character to stand the attacks and stay focused and Obama would collapse in depression (rumor in DC is he is under medication) under the pressure.
Speaking of contemptable phrases, how bout, “I was for it before I was against it.”
Well said, bravo!
PLEASE NOTE: I apologize in advance if the tone of this message sounds hostile, bitter, cynical, spiteful or angry – it isn’t, but in the interests of brevity, I am keeping my statement as brief and to the point as I can, and thus not ‘cushioning the blow.’
The Good Doctor shows his usual civility, character, manners, thoughtfulness and intelligence in respecting the call to civility while only rather gently admonishing the Left for their mind-boggling hypocrisy.
Alas, the good intentions of those who accept this call to civil discourse will, in the long run, be in vain. Here’s why:
It has been said that there is no point in arguing with someone on the Left because you only get soiled as a result. This statement arises typically when someone attempts to engage in civil and respectful discussion/debate with a Leftist and is quickly met with viciously personal attacks, invective, hollow talking points/mantras/demagoguery/propaganda and the rest of the by now familiar Saul Alinsky tools of ideological battle. But the ‘get soiled’ statement only addresses the SYMPTOMS of the problem. Leftists resort to their vitriole because they are unable to distinguish between respectful debate and personal attack – discussions using evidence, logic, verifiable fact and reason always profoundly undermine the insubstantial and ultimately self-deceptive doctrine/dogma/scripture of ‘Progressivism.’ Most importantly, the fundamental reason why the ‘truths’ held so dear by the Left are so passionately embraced by their adherents without any rational basis is because the very instruments of Human Rationality – logic, fact, constructively critical analysis, structure, and dispassionate contemplation – are tools used by ADULTS, but not by……….CHILDREN.
We live in a society without want of any serious sort – food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, transportation, travel, leisure and all the other things of modern life – are hardly in short supply in either quality or quantity, but are actively pursued by many in ever greater volume and speed at the inexorable exclusion of loftier goals that require sacrificing immediate emotional satisfaction, material gain or physical comfort.
In short – we live in times where one can function quite well in society without ever maturing into an adult, but remaining at the level of a child or teenager.
Huxley’s Brave New World has come about.
If the living standards of Western Civilization were dialed back to what they were 3-4 generations ago, adult behavior and sober – minded maturity might make a widespread comeback after a decade or two. Naturally, wishing for such a ‘trial by fire’ is a bit callous. Nevertheless, without a very profound and dramatic change in the very fabric of current Western society, there will be no rejuvenation of the spirit, mores, values, energy and principles which gave birth to the Renaissance and the rise of the West.
As Toynbee pointed out so skillfully, a ‘palingenesia’ cannot occur without crises and upheaval.
Well said!
We are, I think, in the early stages of the crisis you speak of. We will not get through the coming civilizational clash with Islam, or overcome the poison of leftism without undergoing a profound transformation ourselves. If we keep our finest traditions front and center always, and in particular our faith in the magnificient Judeo-Christian ethos, and the civic principles of the ancient Greeks, we should get through that fire better and stronger than we were before. If we lose faith, fall to divisions between us or lose sight of who we are, we are doomed. Either way there is tribulation ahead, but we have been through much before this, and something tells me our day is not yet done.
Outstanding post, you get to the foundation and expose it splendidly. I try on a regular basis to dialogue with “the Left.” It is an exercise in futility.
I say scr$w civility and the left. I hate the very idea of the left living here in America.
What more needs to be said or what more does the left need to do or demonstrate their hatred for America before all of you will come to some conclusion that we and the left can not coexist together in America?
I am tired of battling them with words and ideas. We can not convince them to see reality and the truth or the lies they have been imbued with. So why do we continue to talk about each new destructive thing the left does to America and us? If you do not think a civil war is inevitiable then please let me know how we will defeat the left and take our nation back.
That is all well said Dr. Hanson but it falls in the standard conservative genre of “This is crazy!” Conservatives are forever pointing out the apparent irrationality, double standards, and uncivil behavior of the left. But it is not any of those things. The system works exactly the way it is supposed to, and it works very well. The left has claimed moral authority, and they got it and keep it because no one has ever really challenged them; (“Do you want the man to come back?” and the answer is always, “Well, no…”) and the right has moral condemnation because the left bestowed it upon them and they never really fought it.
That has always been my biggest complaint about conservatives and Republicans: they don’t fight back, and even when they do fight a little they never reach the intensity of the “progressives.”
Americans are not incapable of understanding facts, presented logically. President Reagan proved that. But no one on the right seems capable or confident enough to present the facts, logically; logic just isn’t warm and fuzzy–and isn’t that what we want in our politicians, “warm and fuzzy”?
I don’t know. Ask Chris Christy.
But President Reagan never came across as cold and unfeeling; even Christy isn’t as warm as Reagan was. Surely there’s someone who can come across as both warm and logical. (Though Governor Christy is more logical than warm, and people seem to like him. A lot.)
Polly,
It is a mistake to use the term “logical” when dealing with leftists. Not because leftists don’t use logic, it is that logic is not a values neutral thought process. What is logical to conservatives is illogical to leftists and vice-versa. The values, or principles we use to govern our lives are contrary to the values of the left and so, we will never be able to successfully argue our points, nor convince them of our arguments because they just don’t think the same way as we.
With this point in mind however, when a leftist uses the term “logical” in their argument, as if it were an unassailable point giving them some kind of moral high ground, that logic is merely subjective to the user and may indeed be utter stupidity.
I couldn’t agree with you more about the need for the right to fight back on moral grounds. For example, there is a moral argument to make against the current overspending. With deficits so large, we actually make it hard to help those that truly need help. The way so many groups, from big business to planned parenthood to acorn feed at the govt trough, to the amazing waste and outright fraud in Medicare and Medicaid makes all of the spending immoral because it affects our ability and desire to spend what actually should be spent.
Perhaps the right needs to be far less nice in confronting, shaming, and embarrassing the left.
Agitation works.
It’s pretty dumb for us to be “civil” when these people are literally destroying our country before our eyes. Scream, yell, castigate and embarrass the people who are engaging in this behavior. Conservatives can take the high road and watch the country collapse, or they can realize that government itself is an institution based upon violence and that our profanity or rabble-rousing is nothing in comparison to violent seizure of property and liberty by the State.
Read Thomas Sowell’s “Rocky and Republicans” comparison of the repussycan’ts and Rocky Marciano at http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell021511.php3
You really think these country club suntanners can slug it out with union thugs and bolshevik street fighters? It’s over.
It’s all part and parcel of the grand design to bind us and silence us. It used to be called PROVOKATION under the Russian CHEKA and a standard tactic is to attack your opponents for acts that you yourself commit, often much more frequently, maliciously and deliberately. It (criticizing dissent based on tone rather than content) can be used to demonize individuals in order to neutralize them; and whole segments of the population to help foment class warfare and steal their wealth.
This ‘regime’ is well versed in PROVOKATION. We saw a variation of this last Thursday when Obama, referencing the uprisings in Egypt, said he was not convinced that Mubarak was serious about putting Egypt on a “path to democracy”. Next day, Mubarak was mysteriously gone. In that same speech Obama implicitely called for American youth to rise up violently against the existing Constitutional-democratic order in the US. Whether he wants to replace it with rule by the Muslim Brotherhood (which is his goal in Egypt, to be followed by the destruction of Israel), remains unclear.
Yes.
The last thing they want to do is have a discussion about policy. Even if they didn’t know that they would always lose, they would still view it as a distraction. They don’t want to discuss, they want to dictate. That way, they win by acclimation.
So they direct the discussion to personal attacks. On their side, they have all of the victims of the horrors. On the other side are all of the perpetrators of the horrors. It quickly negates objectivity and reduces the discussion to emotions, which are much easier to manipulate than thoughts.
So the basic response to a charge is “you do it ten times more”, in a voice 10 times as loud. It works. It makes the other party emotional, and heightens the fear of the target audience. Totally emotion-based.
Agreed. Which is why it is accurate to describe the current crisis as a cultural civil war. It is not about winning a debate, it is about blasting your opponent off the battlefield. Or at least creating the conditions wherein it no longer behooves him to fight.
Without Executive power, best we can hope for for now is a stalemate. If we can undo some of the damage, and uncover some of the corruption, that is gravy. 2012 will be the time to counter-attack.
With all due respect, do you think that even if, somehow, we win the WH in 12 that the left will go away??? Huh! It is a civil war that must be fought not with words and ideas but, and I know this is unpleasant, with blood and lives. Remember that only about 40% of the colonials supported fighting for our independence.
What makes you think the left will abide by our winning the WH in 12? How much more does the left need to do to show their contempt for our Constitution, laws and rights?
As long as they have the msm, Soros and other billionaires, Wall Street, academia and a majority of state and federal jobs they will never cease in their drive to destroy America.
First things first.
Another difference: the pix of Michael Moore with Jimmy Carter at the convention and of congressmen waiting in line for his movie’s premier went beyond the water’s edge. This fed BDS abroad. Today, Obama has lost the respect of foreigners with no help from the movie industry or congressional moviegoers.
I walked out on ‘The Valley Of Elah’ when the arab was about to smash the CIA guy’s finger with a hammer as he said, ‘This is what you do in Guantanamo…now I’m going to do it to you!’ or something like that. I was already turned off by the plot in which the CIA guy took information from a native arab and then didn’t protect him and didn’t care when the arab’s cover was blown and he was taken away…or something like that. I wish they could have flushed the screenplay down the toilet in Guantanamo.
Somebody somewhere…I think Zombie.com has pictures in archives of all the protest signs saying to kill, murder, assassinate W. and the rest in his appointees and advisors. There was a whole genre of Bush-the-Devil-Hitler signs and pictures. I remember them plain as day and no president in recent memory has behaved with more dignity that W.
I believe that you may be thinking of this: http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
And the odd thing is that I remember first seeing them and more pictures like them on Little Green Footballs when Charles’ political views were more in sync with VDH, Powerline and the ‘right’ in general before his transformation.
Little Green Footballs certainly has gone down the toilet, in every sense of the phrase.
I was one of the first people to be banned from it, back in 2007. I blogged about it at the time, but now there’s a satirical site dedicated to tracking, and making fun of, the goings-on at LGF:
Diary of Daedalus
re: LGF … I got bounced when I made condemnation remarks about Ted Kennedy.
Saying the good catholic that he was, he’d spend some millenia in Purgatory getting water boarded … with Mary Jo on the bucket.
Mr. Charles found that too much. I guess that was about the time when his clutch started slipping.
WOW! The smug look on the faces of those ugly sign-carrying hippies is striking!
I bet they’re the same idiots who later carried signs demanding government-funded single-payer ObamaCare.
Exactly!
Who cares what the rot-brained MoveOns and Soroses of the world spew out, we need to concentrate on our message. We need to win in 2012.
BTW, who still reads the NYT or has ever listened to Bill Maher?
Big difference between Obama and Bush is the former can’t take the heat, he is forever wanting to be graded on the curve and celebrated for just showing up. His friends whining about all this just makes him look weaker.
Here is the link for Zombie’s “Bush as Hitler” picture collection:
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
Essential documentation of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
“Oprah was just quoted as calling for more civility to be shown President Obama (“even if you’re not in support of his policies, there needs to be a certain level of respect”), echoing the president’s own post-Tucson insistence on a new amity between opponents.”
What a skank. Sure, now because she’s all in for the Man/boy president she calls for “respect.” But where was she when Bush and Cheney were called every name in the book? Where was she when General David Petraeus was being crucified in Congress? Where was she during the election of 2008 when people were asking questions about “Reverand” Wright and Bill Ayers? Nowhere, that lieing dog. Well, now she’s stuck with this empty suit for a president and I hope she’s happy with him. Respect? She doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. Not only does this guy with no experience in ANYTHING deserve no respect, he needs to be voted out of office as soon as possible next year, that is of course unless we really do want to go bankrupt and have a third term of the Carter administration.
Sure, now they want “respect” and “civility.” And where were Obama, Pelosi, and Reid when they were calling the Tea Party members every name in the book as well? What a hypocritical bunch of whores these people are and I just can’t wait for 2012 to vote their little child-president out of office. Disgusting.
No kidding! That hag even when to Wright’s church before she quit it. She knew exactly what was being said in that so-called church and she said nothing!
It’s better to think about it as just another military tactic, rather than getting upset about it.
They know how infuriating it can be and play on that.
A big part of the moron’s strategy, for example, is to piss people off. He knows that when people are po’ed, they aren’t as capable of thinking rationally. This is the reason for the middle finger to the cheek, for the Gates incident, for the Black Panther thing, for refusing to say the word terrorism, for the refusal to protect the border, and many many other actions designed exclusively to anger conservatives. And then, there is the deliberate provocation of the Supreme Court Justices, telling John McCain that the election is over, turning NASA into a Mulim outreach agency, etc etc etc. None of that stuff make sense until you realize he is just fomenting anger.
When Oprah said that we had to show more respect for the president she meant we had to show more respect for a black president. She’s a clever bigot, but she is, nonetheless, a bigot.
Do any of the pathetic clowns who claim we are raaaaacist for opposing 0bama think for one moment that if some other Chicago machine crook were in the White House — a WHITE one — we’d like it any better?
Her real con is the same as obama’s con.
They have spent their lives pretending to be non-threatening.
Many stupid white people are so happy to have an outwardly pleasant black person in front of them that they will do anything to maintain the carade that Oprah and little lenin are the norm, rather than Rev Wrigt and Al Sharpton. Meanwhile, behind the scenes…
No.
Next question?
Oprah is the “o”s biggest shill. . . . she is a bloated gasbag with a following of sheeple devoted to her left-wing touchy-feely foolishness.A perfect partner for the “o”. . . .what kind of deal do you think she made with the “o” to back him? Michael Moore needs to be deported or jailed as a traitor.
This is THE story of our age, at least in this country. To be honest I was not a big fan of GWB mostly because he was/is a supposedly “compassionate conservative”, which simply means he buys into a portion of the Leftist premise of governments proper role as being all things to all people. That having been said, the massive campaign of scorched-earth personal destruction against him by the Leftists in Big Media (including infotainment such as John Stewart, et al) was a textbook case of what Bill Clinton called the Politics of Personal Destruction, except it was for real and not just a feigned defense as in Clintons case. The daily all-out assault against president Bush was like nothing else I have witnessed in my lifetime and we all had ringside seats to the spectacle.
Now compare that media tidal wave of assaults on every minute aspect of GWBs character and manerisms with the delft touch and uncritical defense of the Obamesiah by those same, ahem, “journalistas” and you begin to realize the scope and depth of the Leftist media bias. How does the body politic function absent an honest public debate? If there is one thing the media Leftists scrupulously want to avoid at all costs it is an honest public debate.
How will the MSM Leftists be brought to heel and held to account for their endemic dishonesty and their willingness to dispense with ANY pretense of objectivity? I think that for the Leftists “making a difference” means never having to admit that you were – and are – professional politicised biased character assassins and little else.
How will the MSM Leftists be brought to heel and held to account for their endemic dishonesty and their willingness to dispense with ANY pretense of objectivity?
Simple. Stop. Watching. Television. Starve the networks of their revenue and they will go away. I have done it for the last three years. No cable, no satellite and no brodcast TV. I watch rental DVDs and I read many more books. It’s refreshing and I save allot of money. Don’t make excuses, just do it.
Each president and administration since Nixon has disowned the Constitution.
The betrayal of the Nation, to place full faith, credit and trust of the US economy on the nation of Saudi Arabia in 1973 ( the Petro dollar system). This act decided fate of the United States, and there is no avoiding it’s inevitable outcome. The dilution of US dollar (Losing 80% of its value since 1973)is only the first in chain of events no one can stop.
Since the day Saudi Arabia was granted control of the US Dollar, they have brazenly and massively increased their global terrorism funding of Wahabbi Islamic fundamentalist training schools. The graduates of these schools live in the USA and Europe, ready to do their Islamic masters bidding at moments notice.
Conservative estimates are about $100 Billion in the last 25 years spent by Saudi Arabia on Wahabbi schools, teaching Islam the only true religion, all other are false, and Christian and Jew must share the same fate; death.
In the USA, about 30,000 attend Wahabbi schools from Washington DC to San Francisco. Across the Globe, hundreds of thousands. The Islamic movement within US prisons, are mainly funded by these same Wahabbi schools.
We fight imagines battles, assign fictional Blame, invent all types of reasons to dislike the political ally sitting across the aisle.
But true enemy of the United States, we treat a valued friend.
I would agree with most of this except the left has taken the islamists as their ally. They virtually say the same exact thing. Listening the islamist called for the death to the infidels is the same words used by the lefts political party – the democrats.
The definition of incivility must be enlarged to include the act of rummaging around the memory hole for bad things said by the left. After that, it will just be a question of time before we move on to the criminalization of inconvenient recollections.
I don’t think it’s uncivil to insist on fairness in discourse.
In my experience, I have never seen a single mainstream pundit or celebrity compare Obama to Hitler, call for his assassination, etc. the way they did when Bush was president. If it did happen, I have no doubt whoever it was would be loudly pilloried.
One needs to be aware that the culture, or better still psychopathology, of the Left can not be treated as being on a par with that of a conservative nature. The gap between the progressives and the conservatives is as wide as that between Islam and the West.
Mentioning Michael Moore brings to the fore his latest antics of fighting for $3 million in film profits, after having trashed Capitalism.
This highlights the inherent insincerity of these demopaths who stop at nothing to attain their goals while reducing the other’s vocabulary to mere clichés with which to bludgeon him.
You make great points. However, you are far too civil I think.
I am against civility. It is not now called for. It is a weakness and a danger.
Our very Republic is at stake.
Civility? After the cold civil war is over. Until then, the Chicago Way times ten and doubled.
In football, the ones who hit hardest win. This is much more serious than football. Rhetorically, and politically, we should be in their faces 24/7, 365. all day, everyday, no let up. Always have them on the defensive. Never stop. No retreat; no surrender; nothing too small to attack them on, nothing to big. Constant.
After we win we can be very civil in victory.
I agree completely, BUT there’s one big problem: the MSM will vilify any conservative or Republican who doesn’t maintain strict civility. The Left has spent years convincing as many Americans as possible that Fox News is really “Faux” News and not to be watched; to the extent the Left has succeeded, the MSM is still more influential than Fox News. THAT is what appears to be foremost in the minds of most of our politicians.
Vilify the MSM back. All day. All the time. Never stop. Call them out before the spin, not after.
Full attack mode. Every day.
That is the only way we win, and the stakes are the highest possible.
VDH, there are no answers to your questions, because the people you speak of…never allow themselves to be asked any questions.
Van Jones called all Republicans “a-holes”. This Communist was given the mantle of a “czar”.
But, the simple truth is this: Janeane Garafolo, Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Van Jones, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Ward Churchill, Ted Rall, Cindy Sheehan, George Soros…they are the true face of the left in this country.
And, I cannot think of a more despicable lot. What they stand for (and against), describes treason and treachery, a vile loathing of America and Americans, a devotion to our destruction and an affection for every one of our enemies.
What soothing words should we speak about them? What tender feelings should we feel?
When you look at Obama’s “inner circle” the whole of his life (please refer to Stanley Kurtz’s book “Radical-In-Chief” for the TRUE bibliography), there is so much incivility…it even includes plots of murder, overthrow of our system of government, dalliances with enemies of state, hatred of not just Republicans…but all southern whites, whites in general, Christians, Jews, …even “garlic nosed Italians”.
Where was the call for civility in the church that Oprah attended that bashed Jews, whites and those garlic-nosed Italians? I don’t recall it.
Where was the umbrage taken when the leader of that church asked God to damn America? I don’t recall it.
Where was the call for civility when the Journolist crowd talked of throwing people through a plate glass window? I don’t recall it.
Where was the call for civility when Ward Churchill called the victims of 9-11, “little Eichmann’s”? I don’t seem to remember it.
Where was the call for civility when Obama went on a Spanish radio station and recalled his days of enflaming UNO, and spoke of “enemies”? It was nowhere to be found.
Where was the call for civility when Bill Ayers and his wife of no soul were trying to murder those kids in uniform that the left now pretends to care so much about…using nail gun bombs? To this day…guilty as hell and free as a bird…without a peep from their flock.
Or when Bill Ayers says that murdering 25 million of our countrymen…(the older generation of white, Christians are the preferred victims…they vote Republican don’t ya know)…where was the moral outrage? Nowhere to be found or heard.
No, my dear cyberfriend…there are no answers to these questions. That is because they are mounted on a pack of vile lies.
Obama spoke of enemies and Van Jones spoke of a-holes. Wright and Pfleger spewed hatred from their pulpits and Ayers, Rall, Moore, Churchill, Penn, Garafolo, Maher, Ackerman, Ayers …spoke of violent overthrow.
They all, along with Soros…want to tear down the country.
And Oprah wants civility, yet ignores completely all of the above. Where does that leave us?
Unless and until the people who champion rampant, unchecked leftism in this country begin to see the ugliness in their reflection…their naked hypocrisy and their vile and despicable traitorous acts, words and deeds and their treachery…civility is not on the horizon. Enemies…sworn enemies…abound.
We need to have this discussion as a nation. But it can’t take place under a mountain of lies.
excellent points
it also leads to the biggest failure of g bush and company– not meeting the accusations and lies from the left head on; a momentum of misinformation was allowed to metastazize into a distict and separate world of existence
while bush & co. took the “high” road by ignoring the detractors (and actually running a country at war) the nonsense of the left spewed out over and over and over became “sense” over the course of many years
Because a strong voice states it.
Because it needs witnessing.
Because the truth is so repellent that I want to turn away.
Because, I must not.
I make myself witness this piece and say that I did.
These criticisms of the left’s rants are spot-on. The right’s rants often heard here are also over-the-top, often vicious. Two wrongs, make….what? Political discourse; 2011.
The left today is 100% in the footsteps of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Fidel, all mass murderers. It’s an undeniable fact. The left never disowns them or criticizes them. To the contrary, they heap praise on the Red Chinese, who imprison 30 milliion, on Castro, who has gutted his nation, on Chavez who wants to be the new Castro. In every era since the 30′s, the left has supported dictatorial regimes. Iran is today’s example. Now they have supported the overthrow of a dictator in Egypt in hopes of gaining a more dictatrorial theocracy, far more bloodthirsty and dangerous than Mubarak.
Saying these things it is not over the top in any way. It is simply stating the facts. We would be fools not point out the truth. Declaring the opposite is simply the most common leftist tactic.
“Facts?” I haven’t heard many lefties lately supporting Stalin or the mullahs. Please fill me in with a hard, cold version of these “facts.”
Here’s what I hear from you; because the left believes in social programs they are Stalin; because Obama did not more clearly support the Greens in Iran, the left loves the mullahs.
My take is that the Obama administration would love it if the greens overthrew the mullahs. He could take some credit and have one less nuke program to worry about, at least in the medium term. BUT, they judged that overt support of the greens would be counter-productive in Iranian domestic politics, that it would actually make more of centrists, hard-liners. Is that too subtle for you? Possibly they are wrong in their assessment, but that hardly translates to love for the mullahs.
Of course leftists today don’t overtly support Stalin. They only did that when the public wasn’t aware what a monster he was. Nowadays, they overtly support Cuba, where Fidel hasn’t been actively killing people for the last few decades. The public has some sympathy for Cubans, because we know how they have suffered for decades, so leftists feel safe in defending that monster. Those are the facts on that issue.
And no, I don’t jump from support for social programs to Stalin. You have never heard me call LBJ a Stalinist, because he wasn’t one. But in 2011, everybody knows that the Great Society failed, and that it caused much more misery than it prevented. 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate, as just one item. Yet today’s Leftists want to quadruple-down on those failures. Well why might that be, since the evidence of the failures is so overwhelming that Clinton dismantles a good bit of it – to no avail, since little lenin has recreated it times 2 plus added the disastrous obamacare? Now Dwight, I actually don’t think you are stupid. You write fairly well. So I know that you are aware that socialism has always failed. The evidence is right in front of your eyes. That tells me, quite obviously, that you are an idealogue, a leftist idealogue. Sure, you deny a relationship to Stalin. That would be lunacy. But, as I said, you are a direct descendent of every socialist idealogue who ever lived. And since you are, I have every reason to believe that, given the chance, you would act exactly as they all did. I would be a fool to believe anything else. Leftists love dictatorships. Dictatorships maintain power through violence. So yes, I believe that you, given the opportunity, would have no problem whatsoever justifying violence to get your way. You are perfectly willing to force me to pay for health care for other people; of course you would be willing to break my arm if I didn’t comply. You are a leftists, and leftists are by nature violent. If that were the only way you could impose your will on others, you wouldn’t hesitate a second.
This is all plainly obvious to anyone who cares to think about it.
By the way, you don’t see conservatives imposing their will on anyone, unless we are attacked ourselves. We believe in freedom, and individual responsibility. We don’t want anybody telling us what to do, and we don’t want to tell anyone else what to do. The EXACT opposity of what you want.
“Dwight, I actually don’t think you are stupid. You write fairly well. So I know that you are aware that socialism has always failed. The evidence is right in front of your eyes. That tells me, quite obviously, that you are an idealogue, a leftist idealogue. Sure, you deny a relationship to Stalin. That would be lunacy. But, as I said, you are a direct descendant of every socialist idealogue who ever lived. And since you are, I have every reason to believe that, given the chance, you would act exactly as they all did. I would be a fool to believe anything else.”
And THAT passes for reasoning with you. Thank you for making mah point.
LBJ was not a Stalinist, but Obama and I, evidently, are. Why? Who knows? Because you say so. How abut Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; are they Stalinist?
Alas, I do not have much confidence in your ability to make any distinction based on reason and logic. I hope that you pay some attention to the Gulag-Solzhnetszin thread. If you read carefully you will learn that a lot of Stalin’s monstrousness came from his own unique character disorder. Even if we had nationalized healthcare, we would not be a totalitarian state, as Russia was, even before the revolution. It’s as if many of you have taken LSD and are having a paranoid trip and can “see” Stalin in Obama. You “know” it is so because you “believe” it is so, “feel” it is so…but it ain’t.
Peripherally related, the most paranoid wackoes on the left were mumbling about GWB canceling elections and staying in power. Now some of you guys are mumbling the same stuff. Another shocker. eh?
Nicely and succinctly stated proreason. Dwight may be a slightly more intelligent troll than most but he keeps coming up pitifully short. The roaches certainly seem to scatter when the light shines brightly upon them.
You are spot on in your comments but too gracious in your responses. And that has been the problem with conservatives for years. I reject all recent calls for civility–they have gained us nothing in the past and will not help us in the future. I want conservatives to be absolutely fact driven but vicious and overwhelming in their responses going forward. Hank Stamper in Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” said “never give an inch”. That should be our motto and we should take the words of Dwight and every other lying progressive bastard and shove them where the sun don’t shine. I don’t want to take a gun to a knife fight I think we should show up with fully automatic, large bore weaponry, artillery, drones, high explosives and anything else that results in advantage and in our enemies crushing ignoble defeat. And don’t talk to me about civility or grace later on. I’m only interested in hearing the cries and lamentations of their women as their figuratively lifeless forms are kicked to the side of the road to rot.
“I don’t want to take a gun to a knife fight I think we should show up with fully automatic, large bore weaponry, artillery, drones, high explosives and anything else that results in advantage and in our enemies crushing ignoble defeat. And don’t talk to me about civility or grace later on. I’m only interested in hearing the cries and lamentations of their women as their figuratively lifeless forms are kicked to the side of the road to rot.”
Ah, Mike D, This is one of those posts we want to cherish and remember, one of the ones we want to be able to recall when the PJM defenders deny that such talk goes on around here. Thank you for verifying many of mah earlier points.
I read “Sometimes a Great Notion” and probably long before you did. What you need is the patience to crawl into the thorn bush and bring out the kittens one by one in your mouth, not spray the thornbush with machine gun fire. Anyway, how did it all work out for Hank?
Part of your problem is that you are talking about using “large bore weapons” in an INTERNET discussion and apparently bringing a small bore brain.(figuratively, of course.)
I know, I’ll bet that you were just a-kiddin’. Would you like to get a pass on this one, or would you like one of the writers here to start a thread pushing your “kicking the lifeless form” agenda? (figuratively, of course.)
Seriously, though. Your problem and the problem of people like you on the left and right is that you are into inflicting damage on the enemy, but not so much into winning. Better leave that to those snaky political generals.
“you will learn that a lot of Stalin’s monstrousness came from his own unique character disorder”
They DEFEND the monsters. You will never ever hear them say that one of their psychopath heroes is just plain evil. If the monster is a marxist, they aren’t just forgiven for any for any crime, they are adulated.
Like 3-year olds, there is always an excuse.
And Matthew is a tame example.
Stalin had a “character disorder”. I’ll say.
I think I understand Dwight’s politics; he is a Dwightist. There are those who literally and figuratively grabbed muskets and with fear and determination went out to meet the redcoats. Then there are those who hung back and saw advantages and safety in withholding judgment and not taking action. Dwight is one of those.
Dwight is no loyalist, but neither is he a revolutionary. He has some kind of business (or perhaps in his case a self-regard) to attend to. Revolutions are bad for business. What would happen to his business if a side he took lost. No, he sees redemption, justification only in playing the neutral, above-it-all observer. He feels himself smarter and more coldly logical than the warriors.
You may, shouldn’t, not want Dwight next to you on a combat patrol, but he has a role to play in public discussions. If this makes him feel good about himself, so be it.
You are right that I would not be rushing to enlist, but if I were out on that combat patrol, you would want me covering you. One uses CARE, is always alert to the dangers, usually moving slowly.
Many of the blurters here would die fast.
I didn’t say recon patrol, Dwight, I said combat patrol. First and foremost Recon. patrols need stealth and care, combat patrols need firepower and determination.
I’m glad you are bringing to light the selective ignorance of the American suckling media.
Anyone that reads the news today, has to be curious about what these media types are NOT publishing.
Our Republic requires it’s citizens be alert to the unseen and unheard, and prepared to protect ourselves from all enemies, domestic and foreign. And it is the domestic enemy that can cause the most damage.
I think it was Margaret Thatcher that said “They don’t teach ‘security’ as a college course. Because it only takes one failure to be fatal.” That’s not an exact quote, but, you get the idea.
Thanks again, Dr. Hanson. for your vigilance.
VDH:
The essential prerequisite for being a modern Leftist is that you must have a properly functioning mental capacity to unremember the facts of the past on command.
Your essay limits itself to the period between 2004 and 2007, but the vein between 2000 and 2004 was just as filled with inconvenient facts.
Who could forget “Selection 2000″ and the interminable reminders of the irrelevant fact that Al Gore had won the popular vote? This was of course given the lie when the DemocRats failed to do what any reasonable party would have done with such a “winning” candidate…nominate him to run once again.
Then there was the entire paranoid conspiracy theorists about how 9/11 was an “inside job”. The certainty with which predictions were made that the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan were doomed to defeat, and the beloved old bromide of the Left, (at least since 1990), that our wars were all solely about oil.
CBS News and Dan Rather lost all journalistic integrity by broadcasting a laughably bogus story about George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard in a blatant attempt to influence the election.
And the MSM seized upon a questionable report from The Lancet that claimed a range of between 8,000 and 194,000 excess deaths from the Iraq War to imply that US and Allied forces had directly killed 98,000 non-combatants.
All this while they studiously ignored the mass graves of Saddam’s murder victims that were being discovered all over that nation as well as the implications of Iraq’s neighbors Iran and Syria’s immediately subsequent increase in WMD research and development.
A good moonbat is not supposed to, nor does it, remember any of this. Like a good little Winston Smith post-MiniLuv, it awakens every morning with a tabula rasa mentality, informed only by it’s undying love for its Master and its seething hatred of that which it is directed to hate.
Don’t forget the mantra that Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court.
I remember back to the Carter-Reagan race, with pundits decrying it as the nastiest, dirtiest political race ever. (I guess they didn’t read about the Adams-Jefferson campaign.) I don’t mind calls for civility, nor do I really mind invectives. What does bother me is the Left’s whip saw between the two. Especially in an age where we can go back and publish their own words. Do they think we have no memory? Do they think us so stupid as to not remember? Or are they themselves that stupid?
yes
Whenever I hear sententious “moderates” endorse the recent “No Labels” initiative and folks like Oprah or Bill Maher calling for “civility” in political discourse I almost weep with bitter laughter. Like you Doctor Hanson I too remember those four years when any and all Bush administration figures were child-murdering Nazis and the left freely and publicly engaged in the most grotesque fantasies about murdering the President and Vice-President.
This was barely three years ago and yet it’s all down the memory hole. I bring this point up with left-leaning friends all the time, many who were particularly, shall we say, “unguarded” in their attitude toward Bush. The current party line is either (a) Mr. Obama is a vastly more intelligent and generally wonderful person than Mr. Bush so Bush deserved it, (b) The Tea Party are all racists, (c) When the Left engages in such language it is “speaking truth to power” and when the Right does it it is “vicious”, (d) That conservatives are too stupid to understand the subtle difference that make a call for the assasination of G.W. Bush much more acceptable than a call for smaller government and (e) “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Naturally these are the same people who now vigorously attribute to Tea Party members all sorts of lurid, baby-eating practices that seem to be cribbed from the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” This “new civility” movement is just another example of the bottomless (and indeed cowardly) hypocrisy of the Left.
Great article. I love when the left suddenly forgets certain issues now that there is no longer a big bad Republican to blame.
I didn’t catch the Grammy awards last night, were any of the celebs wearing the orange ribbons in support of shutting down Guantanamo? They were all the rage on the red carpet a few years ago…
Oh that’s right, Obama is in charge now. We’re not talking about that place anymore.
Exactly. Do you remember the charge that the Bush administration was willfully, systematically, and maliciously violating the constitutional/human rights of Muslim detainees? Whatever happened to trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 911, in civilian courts? Has his trial date and venue been set? Here’s your chance leftists you wanted to try these guys in civilian courts, now go do it.
VDH: You are way too civil and kind in your account of Liberal hypocracy and hatefulness.
You are the great historian – when was the last time a war was won by kindness and civility ? Get real .
Solutions rather than rehashing are called for Dr. VDH.
Every great social change needs its wise men and its soldiers, and Dr. H is more valuable as a voice than as a shooter.
Dr Hanson: The current President is already treated with kid gloves and deference even when he lies (which is almost all of the time). The deference has gone as far as calling evil good and good evil. The truth is; like the Islamists, the left has put on the sheep’s clothing, pretending to have morals and common decenecy while they are busy serving their agenda of destroying all that is good in a free and capitalist society. These people don’t have short term memory loss but they, having no morals regarding the truth, lie to gain advantage while the opportunity exists. Baghdad Bob comes to mind, watching the American troops at the airport in Baghdad while on a split screen there’s Bob saying it wasn’t so.
If President Bush behaved like President Obama he would have been impeached already. The cries would be deafening.
The underlying point is that the Cuddly Bunnies of Leftism have no limits. They are willing to do or say anything.
They have even developed an elaborate intellectual framework to support complete amorality. It’s called relativism. Basically, the theory is that there are no truths. Truth is different to everybody, so, for example, the United States is really no better or worse than Iran or Stalinist Russia. Conveniently, they ignore Nazi Germany in their otherwise rigorous intellectual proofs.
So in 2006, they can advocate for the assassination of a president and in 2011, be outraged at the mildest criticism of a president, while simultaneously calling Sarah Palin a murderer for inciting a madman’s actions. Literally, nothing is impossible once you disconnect from reality, as they have.
Again, they are willing to do or say ANYTHING. Obama, with a straight face, declares on national TV that he hasn’t raised a single tax. His henchman declares that the Muslim Brotherhood has no religious basis. Government Motors declares they have paid back government loans. It’s Hitler’s Big Lie on steroids. Earlier, they declare that Bush, a man who couldn’t lie with a straight face if the fate of the free world depended on it, as the greatest liar of all time.
The only thing you can know for sure when a leftist speaks is that the words are meant to deceive you. They wouldn’t even bother to speak unless there was an ulterior motive.
This is why I know, without a doubt, that if they are able to secure their grip on total power, that millions of people will be killed. How so? Because they call themselves the party of peace, and they wouldn’t do so if it was not a lie.
“It’s Hitler’s Big Lie on steroids.” Now, think about that for just a second. Good grief, do you do you discriminate at all? Once you get going…it’s embarrassing.
Like I’ve said, I don’t see any difference between committed progressives and communists. It’s just a matter of what you think you can get away with.
Answer this. Are you willing to put me in jail if I refuse to buy health insurance? The answer, obiously, is yes. You are willing to take away my liberty if I don’t comply with your dictates.
So why shouldn’t I believe that you would be willing to break my arm if jail didn’t persuade me.
On other threads you are advocating censorship of PJM commentors. You are defending George Soros. You are exalting in the Tucson murders and blaming conseratives for them.
Obviously, you see yourself as a sensitive person and conservatives as monsters.
I don’t see any difference between you and Stalin. If you had the power you would use it.
Pointing out that people are irrational blurters and babblers is not asking that they be censored, but merely holding them responsible for what they say. I never suggested censorship, nor did I EVER blame the right for Tucson. So you are just making that stuff up. I don’t recall defending Sooros, but I may have. As for putting you in jail if you do not buy healthcare; nope; I would be more civilized and take it out of your taxes they they do now in Massachusetts (where you have to supply proof of health care when you do your state income tax), and then put you in jail if you didn’t pay your taxes. It’s what they did to Capone, right? Fascists!!!
The rules for radicals are different from the rules for the “rest” of the people. When the White House shifts back to a Republican, the rules will change. Civility will be a quaint notion, something from a bygone era and the radicals will be back to familiar territory – making death wishes, smearing and hating any and all who don’t share their leftist world view. Relax. Incivility is waiting in the wings.
It helps if you can bring yourself to consider the possibility that a type of lunacy has been triggered, or in some cases was always there, among a portion of our population. In Maher’s case it’s not even a consideration, just bald fact. Today’s leftism is an encouragement & license to hate. The amount of turnaround on policy issues, total reversal of positions [debt, NSA "spying", etc,] are a major symptom of severe and pervasive irrationality.
Simply put. we are not dealing with normalcy.
Oprah is trying to buy time until after the 2012 election to divert attention, under the guise of civility, to mask Obama’s epic failure as President; to make Obama the sympathetic figure to regain the female vote. Ironic, since just a couple of years ago, Obama symbolically deemed himself the modern day Caesar complete with Styrofoam Greek columns in front of thousands of adoring fans. Obama was something far more than just President – a modern day messiah and healer. Obama was the one the world had been waiting for.
This is the “civil” way of calling the American Right racists and fascists. And if Obama happens to lose in 2012, those are the words that will be coming out of civil Oprah’s mouth I predict.
Just as weakness is provocation to the jihadists, adversarial civility is perceived as weakness by the Left.
You are absolutely correct.
I often see the news on TV and think: ‘I wish you could be held accountable for those words in a year or two’s time, you evil people’.
It is indeed frightening the evil they do with such clear conscience.
There are errors of commission AND omission.
The amoral people on the Left can willy-nilly make as many of these as they want, and even contradict themselves—they are FREE!
Conservatives and others on the Right, especially those in power, either by electoral vote as a politician or as media “stars”, save a few “fringe” types like the heroine of our besotted age, Ann Coulter, blatantly commit the OMISSION error.
We need myriad Victor Davis Hanson’s!
Each elected American should have a clone of VDH to advise them on what to say about the latest. Oh, what poor debaters right-wingers have become!
Also, the historical reminder VDH provides, in detail, today, of 2004-2007, is simply the latest cry that epitomizes the way those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Forgetful DOOM is our just reward, so look out for more American pain.
Right thinking leaders must stop committing errors of omission, and before even taking anything an Oprah type says seriously, they MUST reveal their hypocrisy!
The way to successfully argue with a liberal is to use the reductio ad absurdum strategy.
Using their own assumptions and logical analysis, it is easy to turn their words against them, and, hey—a majority of grown ups should thus be able to grasp the impossibility of liberal’s ploys.
Actually, given that Obama fooled enough people to become the president proves that the USA is in deep spit, and that the majority of Americans ARE inherently “insane”, given Einstein’s definition of that word.
Take care of yourself!
Hey, let’s give some credit where credit is due! Of course Obama is a dumb, lazy, shiftless, mendacious boob. But, he has guys working for him that know that many of Bush’s policies were sound and has forced the Kenyan to adopt them. Thus, we continue to have reasonable, rational policy, e.g., Gitmo is still open,without having to hear the endless protest of the captive media and the blathering of the the Moores, Lettermans, Roseannes and Streisands of the faux-intellegencia.
The recidivist, treasonous, lying, looting, thieving, mass-murdering, co-serial-rapist perjurer ….
…. Missus Cli’ton, stated the General’s testimony required a suspicion of disbelief ….
Suspension?
The Left knows not what forces it may be unleashing on itself. By shutting down civil debate they foolishly think that their opponents will quietly go away, unaware that they are in fact seething and boiling at the tyrannical, childish tactics the Left employs to get its way. From my experience and observations the Left relies on three basic tactics to win arguments. One is a ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ distortion of the language to make every debate a win-win for them, as in the ever changing labels describing the climate and its changes. Failing that, the second is to resort to name-calling, an attempt, as in the first, to end the debate without ever having had one. The third is loudly talking over you, an adult version of screaming “lalalalala…I can’t hear you…lalalala”. These tactics are those of a child – lacking both the intellectual skill to argue its case or the maturity to understand that the adults will sooner or later tire of its tactics and visit hell on their petulant little behinds. Self indulgent and out of control children are an annoyance in one’s personal life but they can be dealt with. Letting them run our institutions and our government is, quite simply, suicidal. More and more of us are waking up to that fact and a day of reckoning is coming.
Two key differences between progressives and conservatives are:
1. Conservatives say what they believe. Progressive hide what they believe.
2. Conservatives want to be left alone. Politics is secondary. There are few professional conservatives. Liberals want to own other people. Politics is their life. Most progressive politicians are lifetime professionals.
If conservatives were as dedicated as liberals are to forcing their will on the country, 90% of elected officials would be conservatives.
Exactly. Which is why conservatives have an inherent disadvantage, making them vulnerable to the old adage ‘all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’. My worry is that the rot has set in so deep, after at least 40+ years of burrowing in, that our institutions and culture are so infested with leftist apparatchiks that many people don’t realize the extent of the infection – any more than fish realize that they’re wet. Conservatives just want to be left alone but I think that like any group, there are limits. I think the Left has become too eager to reveal itself since the election of Obama and I hope that their arrogance is the spark that awakens the good people of this country.
You forget the tactic of charging any challenger of various “terrible” crimes against humanity, reason, science, etc. As mentioned earlier, the easiest way to figure out what the looney left is up to, is to see what they’re accusing others of. Keeping people from voting- like those uniformed types? Rejecting science- like life beginning at conception? Lying to the people-like “I haven’t raised taxes”? Corrupt government-like a stimulus bill where all the money goes to your political allies? Promissing open government- like a Justice Dept. that won’t repond to FOIA reguests? White House,ditto, and Treasury and….
If they accuse someone of doing something wrong, and they’re not doing it- well, they are, you just missed it!
“So yes, bring on the new civility.”
I expect an apology first.
The real irony is very few dems voiced any opposition when Bush was given a blank check to get us into Iraq, when real opposition might have prevented the war in the first place. But when Bush finally did the right thing in Iraq, by appointing Petraeus and Gates, and finally coming up with the surge policy that would actually win there, then all the dems finally come out of the woodwork and start protesting and proclaiming defeat.
Its as if dems dont mind it that much when we get into wars, but only complain if we actually try to win them.
I’m with Ann Coulter on this issue. After Obama won the 2008 election, Ann said she’d be just as respectful of him as the Left was with Bush.
I’m more respectful, actually. I’ve never referred to Obama as H … (you know, the Godwin’s Law name). I do, however, frequently call him “President Doofenshmirtz” (and that IS a reference to Heinz, not Roger).
“My god, I do remember 2007, when the New York Times gave a discount to MoveOn.org for the ad hominem “General Betray Us” ad. Hillary that day suggested the general’s testimony required a suspicion of disbelief.”
You don’t remember it well enough. She said it required a suspension, not a suspicion, of disbelief.
See my comment #43. Which is it? Suspension or suspicion? My head hurts…
Take heart, you who doubt that our youth will hold onto our Republic for dear life! Adding to Dr. Hanson’s historical reference to our military in his wise take on current events, I can now testify to having seen plenty of our “children” ready and eager to prove, once again, that the USA will endure all threats to its Exceptionalism.
For those who have not been there yet, please see nationalinfantrymuseum.com for a video and detail of inspiring individual service of our youth to our beloved country. For starters, the Ft Benning Gallery highlights the training that turns a young farm boy from Iowa or a ball player from Texas into a Soldier and The Last 100 Yards is the museum’s signature exhibit. Life-like scenes from eight wars in Infantry history dot a 100-yard-long gently inclining ramp, signifying the Infantry’s role in taking the last 100 yards of any battle.
Having always placed my bets on the kids, I can tell you for sure, from the benefit I’ve seen to my oldest grandson in choosing to become Army Strong, that we’re still producing the best of the crop!
Thank you VDH for putting Hillary’s words in print. For years I (erroneously) believed it was “a suspension of disbelief” that she said. Admittedly, after hearing her shrill voice I blocked out any actual thinking about the words she used. Logically “a suspension of belief” would have made sense in that context, but, as I said, with the tone of her voice I just tuned her out and somehow got the gist of her words. Like reading the words of a particular song you’ve known for years and realizing you’ve sang them wrong all this time I guess! (And, no, I’m not singing Hillary’s song)
I’ll tell you what Oprah’s remarks means (putting aside her personal friendship with Barack): blacks will support a black president as long as he is liberal and regardless of how effective he is.
I suspect there is zero support for Herman Cain, but I can assure you that Herman Cain today would do a better job than Barack Obama.
There would be measurable increase in all Americans’ income if Herman Cain was president tomorrow.
But the black voting block is forever Dem.
I’ll invoke Godwin’s Law. Oprah is Obama’s Reifenstahl, and Mahr is his Goebbells. I don’t know if I’d call Michael Moore his Goring, becuase while they may have shared a similar girth, Goring was fifty times the man that Michael Moore is. Obama has his little private circle just like a certain Nobel Prize nominee did, but few want to make the association. References to the National Socialists is strictly reserved for use against freedom minded republicans (small ‘r’) and not Democrats, and any figure of influence who strays from that will be viciously attacked by lap dogs in the media.
It is important to keep in mind that a huge percentage of liberals are very wealthy and live in protected enclaves, surrounded by other liberals (San Francisco, Berkeley, Washington, D.C., most of the NorthEast, etc. They know that they have enough money stashed away, some of it abroad, to take care of their children and grandchildren and so they really couldn’t care less about most citizens of the U.S. Their liberalism is a combination of power and religion; their God is themselves and they firmly believe they are due the power of a God because they are wealthy.
Until their money finally runs out, and their great-grandchildren actually have to go to work, nothing will change.
I’m a little confused here. I was reading your columns from 2004-7 and I seem to remember you told us everything was fine.
In fact, before the Surge you said everything was fine. Then after the Surge you said, “OK, now everything actually IS fine!”
Dr. Hanson, re: “Let us by all means respect the president and his office, and focus on his policies, not the person, agreeing when we can, disagreeing when we must.” I rarely disagree with you, Professor, but you are utterly wrong here. “Respect the president and his office”? So, are we to be compelled to “respect” a man who wishes ill to the United States, and who has made no secret of that fact? Obama is a usurper, a deceiver, a liar of the first order – yet you and other establishment conservatives persist in being well-mannered and “civil”… that’s a prescription for defeat, sir.
History will not remember us kindly if we lack the moral courage and backbone to speak the truth, no matter how unpleasant or confrontational it may be. If leadership is anything, it is doing the hard, unpopular thing, instead of the easy, popular path of least resistance. Unfortunately, Dr. Hanson, you are taking the latter road, not the former – concerning Mr. Obama. Will it hurt you that badly not to be invited to the White House this coming year?
Mike Mc, re: “I am against civility. It is not now called for. It is a weakness and a danger.Our very Republic is at stake. Civility? After the cold civil war is over. Until then, the Chicago Way times ten and doubled.
In football, the ones who hit hardest win. This is much more serious than football…After we win we can be very civil in victory.” Very well-said, and precisely the attitude we need if we are to save our republic.
Gylippus, re: “It’s all part and parcel of the grand design to bind us and silence us. It used to be called PROVOKATION under the Russian CHEKA and a standard tactic is to attack your opponents for acts that you yourself commit, often much more frequently, maliciously and deliberately. It (criticizing dissent based on tone rather than content) can be used to demonize individuals in order to neutralize them…” Yes, precisely correct; this cannot be repeated enough. Agent provocateur tactics are part and parcel of the international radical left, of which the neo-communist Obama is a part. They are waging a well-orchestrated and thus far, very effective propaganda and psychological warfare operation against us, those who oppose them. They’ve already captured vast segments of America – our schools, universities, media, government, even significant portions of the military and law enforcement communities. The hour is late. We’d better start resisting more effectively, or face the prospect of defeat. That begins with refusing to let the left define the terms of the debate.
Mr. Neilsen, re: “Having always placed my bets on the kids, I can tell you for sure, from the benefit I’ve seen to my oldest grandson in choosing to become Army Strong, that we’re still producing the best of the crop!”
You must be proud of your grandson, sir, but unfortunately, the army and the other services has failed their most recent institutional tests for the defense of our republic. I refer to the unresolved question of Obama’s provenance and constitutional eligibility to hold the office he now occupies. The other lines of defense, of check and balance, having failed, it was the job of the uniformed military chiefs on the JCS, to publicly ask Congress for clarification of Mr. Obama’s status as CIC. Failing to get it, they should have been willing to resign en mass rather than follow orders from a man who may hold the presidency illegally. The chiefs failed to do that; they fell in line like the little bureaucrats-in-uniform that they are. When Lt.Colonel Lakin, a much decorated field-grade officer and an M.D., put his career on the line to do the job his bosses should have, the army rigged the trial and denied him due process, and he is now imprisoned at Ft. Levenworth.
This is to say nothing of the failure of the army to act decisively or correctly in the aftermath of the Ft. Hood shootings by Major Hassan, a Muslim with “sudden jihad syndrome,” or the fiasco surrounding the toppling of DADT.
My point is this: please do not allow your pride in your grandson to obscure the very real corruption and degradation in our military, beginning at the very top. I have some optimism concerning the young people reforming the military and our nation, but they won’t be senior-enough to do the job for many years, and we are not out of the woods yet.
Unfortunately, the anti-Bush/anti-Iraq films continued past January 2009. Fortunately, they were still generally commercial flops.
(Numbers below are from Wikipedia.)
The Green Zone (2010) was an expensive failure. $94.8m in box office, but cost $140m+ to film and produce.
The Messenger (2009) made only $1.4m.
Fair Game (2010), the reality-challenged tale on Valerie Plame that ignores Richard Armitage, made $20m on a $22m budget.
Of all the various Hollywood Iraq War films, really only the Hurt Locker (2009) was a success – $49m box office on a $15m budget. (Those Oscars certainly helped…) And it wasn’t really an anti-Iraqi War film, unlike most of the rest. (Although not a pro-war film, either.)
You make mediocre to bad movies with politics that only the elites (or foreign audiences) agree with, and surprise, surprise, they lose money.
If you go outside Hollywood, there are a few other successes. But any basis in reality wasn’t part of their formulas. This includes deliberate manipulations and falsehoods (Fahrenheit 9/11) and wildly anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda (the Turkish Valley of the Wolves movies).
Those on the left say they hate the right. They also hold them in contempt. What few of them realize is that if the gloves come off, if there is even an instant where there’s an opportunity of striking them back without facing the entire weight of the State, there’s truly going to be Hell to pay for them. They have no idea how many of us would love to see long lines of them trudging broken and defeated across the border into Mexico. The left has no comprehension of how coldly, bitterly angry they have made their political opposition. There is no civility left for them, nor any pity, nor any mercy. They’ve long since forfeited all that. Now, there’s nothing but sheer primal hatred on both sides, and I think the right is going to shock the left senseless. When the time comes, it will be war to the knife. It’s going to make the Spanish Civil War look like a kid’s play.
OK, I hear the hatred loud and clear. We’ll check you off for being one of the PJM haters (who supposedly don’t exist.)
It will take a mighty force for me to become more civil to those who disrespect not just a man or party but the foundations upon which this nation was founded. Only their celebrity gives them the megaphone necessary to broadcast their distain for our constitution.
Of course they loved the forty years they controlled the House, socializing the US into a welfare state and the welfare Cadillac momma. They revelled in joining Jane in her sojourn to Hanoi propagandizing and cheering on the killing of more American troops. It was a cleavage, a demarcation that will not receed until the boomer generation has passed….nor do many of us want it to for it’s lesson is too valuable to lose in one generation.
Frm the Venona Papers and Colonel House to to days Congrsssional membership in the Soviet fronted Democratic Socialist Party the Democrats have worked towark building a socialist, Stalinist world on netween our shores.
It has nothing to do with holding a grudge and everything with holding a nation, for it cannot be overlooked that treachery is still in play.
We are far from seeing the end of “The Age of No Civility”
Not exactly leading from the from here Hanson.
My kids say this- “but Johnny did it!” and that is pretty much what you brought here.
Are you ok with people invoking brown shirts or not?
Accept it all or reject it all.
Pot calls kettle black!
This does not raise the game much less the discourse.
well, if you actually want to win back the country…..think of the middle, or the ones raised left. Write. Just like Mr. Hanson. Speak, just like a neighbor. Start at one point, then lay out your steps to your conclusion. Back it up with where you found it. Not all leftists are evil: some are raised that way.
I think the writer I am most comfortable with is Robin of Berkeley. I was raised by a serious, committed leftist. I read, of course, the biography of so and so, by Joe Conason. I checked his endnotes, and he had something written by Ann Coulter. I checked out Ann Coulter’s book. And then checked her endnotes, b/c what she said was stunning and new information to me. Then, I checked out a documentary on Howard Zinn- my friends had a book group to study the People’s History. I wanted to be prepared. It had footage of the Vietnam Vets interview, and mentioned Reagan. So I checked out a book on Vietnam, and checked out a documentary on Reagan. It, too, was stunning. Completely stunning. I had to check out a book to cross-check what it said- which wasn’t easy, btw- there aren’t many friendly, popular ( short!) books on rightwingers. There are big doorstops, and big biographies, and rants by people who assume the reader has been to college and has an intense poli- sci degree. Plus, the nastiness about leftwingers. Hellooo–why would I join the club that thinks I’m trashy and stupid and evil,just b/c I was raised that way? I didn’t have the benefit of whatever “good parenting” that you guys think to be the minimum to be decent. I grew up in a leftist house- that means people were divorced. Why step on my feet for what my parents did? Why insult me, when I’m trying to figure things out?
I am far, far, far more conservative now. But I don’t call leftists evil. I say ” this is one way of looking at it. Oh, and btw, 100 million dead…never explained.” or ” 1/3 of all infants were aborted in the 1970s. We lived through the Black Plague. We should be proud of anything we have accomplished since then.” Or, ” Okay, you want soldiers at home, so they can live. I want infants to live, too. We have a common goal.” I’m kind of stuck on the marriage thing. I’m married, we have three kids, and they are so different than me. I feel so blessed. OTOH, the spouse isn’t happy, and I haven’t a clue what to do besides get a divorce. I’m staying, and hoping somehow his heart will untangle. I have no idea, no skills, and no backup. My parents think it’s a natural stage of marriage- the birth, growth, and death…..It grieves me, and scares me, too. I mean, I thought I was being carefully traditional. and now I think, damn, if I’d really been true to what I’d been raised, I’d have a career, and this wouldn’t be a big deal. As it is, what woman would let herself be vulnerable like this, when she’s devoted to her children? So, I think, the left had solutions for when the right didn’t work right.
You suggest being civil while the most notable leftist in the country, Paul Krugman, accuses Sarah Palin of inciting the Tucson massacre and while NOBODY in the mainstream press calls out an author who writes a play about assassinating George Bush. The leftist websites are dominated by people calling for the deaths of Tea Partiers. ALL of the political violence in this country is committed by leftists.
Sorry, “civility fans”, being nice isn’t cutting it. There is a marxist in the white house who spends every waking minute scheming to destroy the country. He is 100% in the footsteps of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Fidel, the greatest mass murderers in history. Have you ever heard Obama condemn one of them? Yet he seeks to humiliate John McCain. Civility for thee but not for me is one of their tactics. The only difference between Obama and those murderers is that he has spent more time practicing his smile. He loves it when people say “oh why can’t we just get along”.
Of course the left whines when someone like myself says the harsh truth about what marxism has always devolved into, and of course they are thrilled by the get along crowd who cry about strong words. That’s what they do.
Within the last two days, a single leftist troll on PJM has called for abandoning the first amendment, defended George Soros, and flatly stated that Josef Stalin had a disease, as if that excuses the murder of millions of Russians. For weeks, that troll couldn’t write a post without exulting over Tucson. And he’s a nice one. Now he’s crying like a baby because I don’t let his slurs and lies go without challenge.
Civility for thee but not for me. The marxists’ tactic du jour.
For once, I actually disagree with Dr. Hanson. I say, those nasty, petty leftist liberals SET the PRECEDENT of nasty, petty behavior, so hey, bad karma for them! I think what Obama “endures” isn’t NEAR awful enough to what Bush endured. I’ve seen in my life way too much application of the Law of the Harvest- you really, in reality, reap what you sow. I have zero sympathy for someone in his inaugarel address insult the previous president sitting 5 feet behind him- he has much more coming to him than what he’s “suffered.” I’m not being vindictive, I just see that liberals gleefully let all their nastiness out and are now irrationally shocked that now nastiness is becoming the norm, even against THEM. I think Obama needs to grow up and SHOW respect and EARN respect from his “enemies” before he GETS respect.
You would think reading the comments here that the left has a lock on shrill unhinged voices, but the right has plenty of their own.
Otherwise good points by Prof Hanson.
#3 Stallion is good as well. Civility is not the hallmark of societies seismic shifts. It will not be easy to take away what people have taken for granted in Western Cultures. We seek globalism, diversity, multiculturalism but unfortunately that means we will have to compete with the China’s and India’s and other cultures that don’t share the same values we do. Their standard of living goes up while ours erodes. So how do you take away the ever bigger screen TV’s? What if one must work a full month to buy one? How do you take away the Healthcare entitlement? What if there is a price to pay (financially and socially) for walking away from the house you committed to pay for? What happens to society when Alan Simpson’s so called “teats” run dry? Sadly this is not exactly a formula for civility.
The only problem I have with calling the years 2004-2007 “The Insane Years” is it implies that some degree of sanity has returned since then. Seems to me the insanity has just gotten worse.
Oh, on the civility front it’s shifted a bit, from mindless hatred of Bush to drooling idolaziation of Obama (and mindless hatred of anyone who doesn’t join in the worship), and I suppose neither is really more or less sane than the other. But economically the roof has caved in and dropped us all into he asylum. In foreign policy, a Military Junta fights with Sharia-law-loving Islamic Fundamentalists for control of the largest Arab country and our MSM gushes with joy at what they claim is a victory for democracy. The entire ediface of AGW has collapsed under the weight of exposed fraud and ice-age like winters, but the Green Agenda marches on, banning incandescent bulbs and sacrificing our farmland to insignificant fish.
Unfortunately, I do think history will call some period of time starting in 2004 “The Insane Years”, but I don’t think we’ve reached the end date yet.
The children of the “Greatest Generation” turned the train (America) ‘left’ during the 60′s and 70′s and have never looked back. It remains on auto pilot, full-steam ahead to this day. Their revolution train has gone far, far to far down the track while most Americans were asleep in surrender.
Moore, Winfrey and all the other notables of their ilk are irrelevant! Whats relevant, is how and why the majority of Americans let those socialist revolutionaries succeed in bring Traditional America to where it is today.
A staunch traditionalist American republican patriot, serving 32 years in uniform, I do agree America’s willingness to be party to the UN beyond direct post WWII reconstruction, has proven fatal.
you did so well, and then had to wrap it all up with “long shot”. I am horrified by your rhetoric and where it might lead.
Yes, there is definitely anti-government, anti-elitist anger, even rage in some of our posters. Mr Lucky also assures me that there is serious anger out there, once I get outside the cocoon. Is anger by definition, self-validating? Answer: only on your side, not the other side.
Anyway, there are interesting parallels here between our current situation and the events surrounding the ratification of the Constitution 1787-1788. I live in Massachusetts, and the Mass. debate was considered a key state for a variety of reasons. It had been the site of Shay’s Rebellion (disillusioned, often foreclosed, vets and farmers picked up their guns and pitchforks and “attacked” the Federal Arsenal at Springfield to gain that huge supply of weapons etc). The treacherous soldiers guarding the arsenal fired on them and Shay’s was captured and sentenced to hang) a year or two earlier and the western part of the state was rife with Shaysites, who felt that they had been ruined by the decisions made by the Federalist/merchants in Boston and along the coast. Maine was also part of Mass. at that time, and their sympathies were unknown.
So in the many days it took for all delegates to discuss/debate the merits of the Constitution (without the Bill of Rights, which came later) we get a decent sense of the issues which motivated both sides. Overall, it seems that the people OPPOSING the acceptance of the Constitution were using very similar arguments to ones we hear from the Tea Party etc today. Accepting the Constitution meant accepting a Federal government which could do all the things which Tea Partyites decry today. One anti-Constitution farmer-Rev. War vet from the community next to mine, Benjamin Randall, complained that all the Federalist pro-Constitution folks were great orators, silver-tongued, Harvard educated lawyers etc. and that if his side had some of those people, the Constitution would not stand a chance of passing.
After many days of speeches and arguing, the vote appeared to be so close that no one knew how it would turn out. Knox was writing periodic letters to Washington, informing him of which way the wind was blowing, and he admitted that he didn’t know how it would turn out.
At a key moment, John Hancock, Gov. of Mass., who had commuted the sentence to hand Shay’s and whose views on the acceptance were unknown, proposed that they accept the Constitution, but send along a list of Amendments, which even though they had no force of law (the deal had always been, you vote the Constitution up or down with no amending) Mass. legislaters would push for as soon as the government started up. For you gunnies, you will be sad to hear that I don’t believe that the right to bear arms was one of those amendments, but the point is that this semi-sleight of hand move by Hancock may have gained just enough votes to carry the day: 187 for, 168 against, 9 absent. Washington and all the Federalists were greatly relieved and we the people now had a shot at becoming a real country.
But what fascinates me is the dynamic of the elistist Federalists vs the somewhat “angry” liberty folks from the boonies, and how we would compare that to the anger and incivility we see today. There is also a social class and educational class dymanic at play today as well and a similar resentment against the ruling elite.
People can draw their own conclusions from this, but I will note a few things: 1. That the Constitution our current angry folks want to get back to was opposed by the angry folks in 1787 2. But the Federalists did come to understand that some of the objections to the Constitution had some validity and the First ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, came into being just a few years later. 3. That Mass. ran their convention the right way, where everyone could speak, unlike Penn., where the Federalists had railroaded passage through, leaving a lot of ill will and bitterness in its wake. In Mass., there was some some behind-the-scenes finagling by the Federalists (the moral of the story being in MY view that jawing and deals trump angry bluster) some so blatant that John Quincy Adams would wince as a young man when he heard the old Federalists bragging about the deals they had made. One rumor was that the delegates would get their expenses stipend paid only if the C was passed and the rich Federalists would then lend the state the money. BUT it worked, and most of the people who had voted against (even local guy Benjamin Randall) agreed to accept the validity of the process and to go back to their communities and sell the Constitution to their skeptical community. My own community split; one voting for, one against.
Fascinating stuff, or at least I think so. Records were kept of the Mass Convention debate; all sifted through the pen of Pauline Maier. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. If you live in one of the original thirteen states, you can learn about your own convention and be guided to the primary sources which are out there. It is probably on Amazon for under $20
vdh– why don’t the republicans remember how deadful these dems etc were with gw? right now the new house repubs continue to act as though they are afarid of their shawdow. they should go for the jugglar, oprah and obama be damned. as you know, politics is a rough game and when you have the power it should be used to obtain the goals that caused the people to put the party in power.
It was starting to sound like an echo chamber in here. I was looking for STRATEGY comments, tougher questions, steps to take. I saw a few; they usually seem mundane and powerless at first, because they require PERSONAL EFFORT and RIGOROUS THOUGHT and sustained commitment to dialogue. Not qualities I have in great supply. Otherwise I wouldn’t bother looking here and elsewhere for them. I know, we all have a lot of frustration, and outrage over the state of affairs, but if we’re honest we must acknowledge that we have the leaders we deserve, otherwise they would be you and me, but leadership and personal sacrifice and service to others is kinda hard. Then Dwight took a chance, WHAM! Shut up, they explained. bill, I find your tone refreshing. But ari takes my breath away. I hope we will all go back and reread her post #54. Thanks, ari, for your bracing honesty, vulnerability and intelligent comments. I wish you the very best.
I don’t want to forget those years, and I’ll make sure others don’t as well. I’ll give the liberals and their leaders civility, but I also keep a printed list of their anti-Bush comments folded in my wallet and I pull it out and read them a few whenever they call for civility. I will remind them until I die, and I will always be civil about it.
Doctor Davis,
You are not alone. Many, if not most, sober headed Americans thank as you do.
Stay well and continue to share your thoughts… We need you to share that great brain.
Sean