Leonard Pitts' column this morning that discusses the liberal-hating, gay-hating, Sean Hannity reader who recently shot up a Tennessee Unitarian church deserves its own post.But it is increasingly the case that what we are being presented isn't a debate between competing worldviews so much as it is a morality play: righteous good versus unholy evil. Conservatives have cast themselves in the former role, leaving liberals the latter. It's a libel to which liberals have responded as the bug does to the windshield: splat.
Unable to say what they believe or to frame it any compelling way, they have allowed themselves to be defined instead from without, standing ineffectual in a mudstorm of invective. They are, the propaganda goes, effete, unpatriotic, unstable, un-American, anti-God, evil, and the source of a voter's every problem, down to and including the death of his goldfish and the breakup of his marriage.
It is so over the top, so patently ridiculous, it's almost funny. Until you remember that dehumanizing people inevitably has consequences.
That's what Knoxville is, a consequence.
No, conservatives did not cause this bloodbath. Jim Adkisson allegedly did. But in telling him ''liberals'' were the source of his every disaffection and woe, conservatives certainly validated the hatred and madness that drove him.
And with that I give you the introductory sentence of a babalu post from this morning.
Yes folks, the ACLU and radical lefties who hate and damn the USA and cream in their pants over Obama and who swoon over the scumbags in Gitmo couldn't be any happier with this story .... They would not be any happier if all the terrorists in Gitmo were released to kill more Americans.
...or yesterday...
Yes infidels all of the liberal, or rather Socialist democrats are still creaming in their pants (not over the Obama girl) but over Obama. The liberals, I mean progressives, I mean neo-marxists love Obama so much that they'd consider sleeping with the guy (I'm talking about the men and women). You can see the libs swoon over this guy like a bunch of girlies at a Justin Timberlake concert. Sounds silly huh? Well it scares the beejesus out of me thinking that this Hahvahd educated opportunist putz could be our president. Sadly, W lowered the standard so much that this shmendrick is now a serious contender. Oy vay.
....or the image they posted this weekend.
I don't think I have anything else to add.
.
24 comments:
"Schmendrick?" "Putz?" "Oy Vay?" Is this from babalu or buh-buh-lu? They have a jewban writing commentary over there?
I agree with Pitts, for what may be the first time. It's all fun and games, until someone pokes an eye out.
Gee, I can feel the love from babalu all the way over here in Miami Springs.
"Unable to say what they believe or to frame it any compelling way, they have allowed themselves to be defined instead from without, standing ineffectual in a mudstorm of invective."
Pitts is wrong. Liberals don't need gasbags on the radio spewing invective in order to define themselves. We have defined ourselves and what we stand for pretty well. What we need is firm, effective and inspiring leadership. Whenever we have it, we win that battle of ideas. (I know a Babaluer or two will have fits with that concept). Let them have the retrograde neanderthals that get their worldview from talk radio. What would we do with them?
Gee Rick you're right. let's ban all the speech from the radio and the net. That's the thing with you folks, you only want the 1st amendment to apply to your illogical arguments and fallacies and hyperboles.
Let's just have Air AMerica on the air. Cause the lefty speak is good as it has a calming effect on the population by encouraging them to smoke pot and Sing "Are you Going to San Francisco" and put flowers in your air as we all bow and pray to the new Messiah, Obama.
Hail Obama! The Savior to the evil Neanderthal conservatives.
So what are you saying that if some putz kills someone because of something I post, I'm responsible? That's perhaps the most moronic thought you've ever promulgated.
Say something intelligent for a change.
I guess we all need to get used to the new greeting come January:
Hale Obama!
And as for my post today, I guess you're jumping for joy and toasting Pelosi and Reed for the deaths caused by the released Gitmo inmate mentioned in my post today. That's just groovy. Using your logic than that's a good thing.
Hale Obama
Thanks for the links, Rick!!!
Ah ha! Sister Cohiba's the closet bubby! Explains everything.
What did you see in this post or anything Pitts said about curbing First Amendment rights? Bit of a jumped conclusion on your part, yes?
And it's "Hail," not "hale!" Sister. As in "Hail Mary." Lame as they are, at least make your insults literate.
And it's "Hail," not "hale!" Sister. As in "Hail Mary." Lame as they are, at least make your insults literate.
There's also "Heil," but no right-winger would use it.
"Unable to say what they believe or to frame it any compelling way, they have allowed themselves to be defined instead from without, standing ineffectual in a mudstorm of invective."
What we need is firm, effective and inspiring leadership. Whenever we have it, we win that battle of ideas.
Forgive me Alex, but if you are speaking in terms of "needing", then I think you are making Pitts' point.
Are gasbags the only compelling framers? I hope not. And I will leave it to SrCohiba to rattle off some liberal gasbags.
And yet, who's operating the scoreboard, for better or worse? That may all change, it's true; and if it does, only time will tell if it's change we can believe in.
Je suis le changement.
Rick: I'm not sure why you give babalu the traffic. Everyone knows Val Prieto gets a woody every 500 page views.
Senor is shrill!
I'm not a catholic so I have not hailed anyone. maybe a cab. so forgive my typo. Your argument and pitt's argument is baseless and disingenuous like blaming the left for deaths caused by the New York Train Shooter and the Virginia sniper.
To argue that someone listening to the radio or reading a blog or newspaper or magazine is the proximate cause of someone killing each other is pure unadulterated horse hockey.
But I guess when you're in love with Obama that's the thing to argue.
Hail Obama! Mein Herr!!!!!
Hail Obama! Mein Herr!!!!!
Dude. Seriously. Do you act like this in public or only when you're behind a keyboard?
To move further the argument made by Squat, I think this actually actually ties into why Pitts says liberals have a problem defining their identity.
The leaders of the liberal movement are commonly derided for being intellectuals, something that's kind of true. This is not to say they are more intelligent than their counterparts, but that they stand for issues of a more complicated morality.
Being pro-choice is a harder to stand for than "stop killing babies"
Being anti-capitial punishment is much harder to explain to someone who just wants to kill child rapists.
Even Habeus Corpus is kind of a complicated concept. Not something easy to explain to someone who just want to kill turrerists.
Raising taxes on the rich always gets simplified into just "raising taxes."
(mind you, I'm going to skip the evangelical side's justifications of their political positions.)
Conservative positions are usually easy to describe, of black and white morals (the communists are coming! the terrorists are coming! higher taxes are coming!) and easy to explain to the masses.
Not only that, but conservatives make it easy to attach fear of something to all of our simple positions.
Leaving the quagmire of Iraq? Losing the war!
Cheaper health care for everyone? We're going to drown in taxes like the french!
Improving our relations with other countries? Other countries are a bunch of pussies! Screw the french, german, russian, pakistani, etc!
Having diplomatic relations with dangerous nations? Negotiating with terrorists! (even though Bush has been doing this months)
Obama is probably our best hope in communicating that there is more to politics than blind conservatism. If the average middle-class person sees their health care costs reduced drastically and then realizes that Obama has actually lowered his taxes, it'll be hard to say he's a stupid socialist.
Hail Obama! Mein Herr!!!!!
After eight years of obeisance to the Unitary Executive, it's fair to say that irony has taken on a new dimension.
cohiba, you ignorant slut.
You seem to have shown your true colors here. All you and your right wing douchebag friends have is the same old rhetoric of Obama-is-the-Messiah blah, blah, etc. It's old, it's tired and it's lame (much like McCain!). Obama is not a Messiah. Far from it. And believe me, we don't perceive him as such. But your Yale Cheerleader and your right wing leaders have so f'ked up this country beyond recognition, it gets people a little excited to see a presidential candidate (and that's all he is) who is so different from what the last 8 years have wrought upon us.
And the Mein Herr comment was so typical of your kind. Unfunny, unintelligent and completely inappropriate and malevolent.
Enjoy the last days of your party's ruined presidency. The Yale Cheerleader's days in power are numbered, as is those who are like-minded with you.
Every time you comment here you show us just what an ignorant, moronic, dumbass you truly are. You're pathetic. Just pathetic. And your Mein Herr comment finally showed us the subhuman you truly are.
Pathetic.
"Adkisson was a loner who hates "blacks, gays and anyone different from him," longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOAQKzY-aOBqDspFkEAV_ZO65vZAD927KA6O0
This man was certifiably nuts. Saying he had the capacity to rationalize murder in any lucid fashion and insinuating that Sean Hannity made him do it is as silly as saying that Harvard is responsible for producing Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber).
I like Leonard Pitts and regularly read his column, but I think he is reaching on this one.
It's a lot of fun analyzing what crazy people say, but most of the time it's just crazy people saying stuff that means absolutely nothing. His ex-wife attended that church. Chances are he was reliving an argument long past on a bad day and just snapped.
Wrong.
From the same news story you linked to.
A four-page letter found in Adkisson's SUV indicated he picked the church for the attack because, the Knoxville police chief said, "he hated the liberal movement" of the congregation.
and
Adkisson's ex-wife once belonged to the church but hadn't attended in years, said Ted Jones, the congregation's president.
and
Adkisson "stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country," investigator Steve Still wrote.
And if you had really read the Pitts column...
No, conservatives did not cause this bloodbath. Jim Adkisson allegedly did. But in telling him ''liberals'' were the source of his every disaffection and woe, conservatives certainly validated the hatred and madness that drove him.
Sometimes it's amazing how people come to the conclusions they do after supposedly reading information presented to them.
Dude. Seriously. Do you act like this in public or only when you're behind a keyboard?
Exactly Roger. Srcohiba is the type of guy who talks tough on a computer but would get his ass beat in real life, deservedly so.
Its also good that you actually read links that people post when they take excerpts from articles to support their arguments. Most of the time they miss the parts that totally discredit their view. Accidentally, of course.
Hate radio, such as Sean Hannity and Rush, as well as some left wing talk shows, should be encouraged to change. Not by passing laws, but by pressure from the public.
I for one and sick of these pure hate radio shows.
Dammit, I'm agreeing with you more and more Rick. Something must be wrong!
SCG
Hail Obama! Mein Herr!!!!!
It's funny Srcohiba would use an obvious fascist/Nazi reference in alluding to Obama, when fascism is an extreme right point of view. But you NEVER see liberals decrying the Bush or possible McCain presidencies as precursor to fascism. Why? Because fascism isn't like to take a hold of this country any more than communism is likely to take over if a liberal/Democrat becomes president. I'm tired of hearing the Cuban exiles using this rhetoric as a way to scare other Cubans into voting Republican.
Once and for all, communism will never take over the U.S. even if Castro himself became president. Why? The checks and balances in our government would never permit it.
I mean arguably Bush implemented more fascist-like policies during his presidency (i.e. wire tapping, censorship, Patriot Act) than Clinton was able to pass communist-like policies. And don't feed me that B.S. that socialism and communism are the same. While on the same side of the political spectrum, they are far apart enough to be distinguishable.
I'm done.
Nope Nonee. Pitts is talking about a need for definition. I think it's pretty clear what the liberals stand for. We don't need the Limbaugh of the left (and there isn't one, regardless of Sr. Tit for Tat's protestations) and as far as compelling, lowest common denominator rantings compels certain people. We don't need those.
(BTW, when Sr. Tit for Tat loses his bet and pays me the $70, it's going straight to the ACLU.)
Alex, you can stand for anything you want. But if it is not presented in a compelling fashion, what's the point? And in politics, you're only as good as your message. And the message does have to be played to a lowest common denominator, because it is a numbers game.
lowest common denominator rantings compels certain people. We don't need those.
Why, that sounds downright elitist.
Hear me out for a minute. Putting ideological preferences aside, let's take the tax issue as an example. And let's say for the moment that the subject of an appropriate level of taxation is one worthy of reasoned debate, and of reasonable disagreement. If all this is so, and I believe it is, then why is one side of the argument demonized as not wanting to pay their fair share (thieves, even), while the other side is demonized as only wanting to ride easy on the backs of the successful (thieves, even)?
You see what I mean? It's shorthand that reaches the baser instincts of humanity -- greed and envy, in this case-- on a subconscious level. Allowing the ego to feed the id, as it were.
Try explaining social justice theory to a three year-old, and and he'll dump his green beans on you. Tell him Billy should share his crayons because that way they both can color, and besides, Billy has more than he needs, now you have fairness in action.
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