If I looked, I’m quite sure I could find plenty of examples of posters saying the left just doesn’t do it. Regardless, if there are admissions that liberals have done bad things, then why is the all the appeals to tone things down still ONLY directed at the right?
I have no doubt you’re right for some of the people. However, I can only diretly speak of of my motives. The attitude I’m seeing is that it’s only the right that spews hatred. Because one side thinks they’re angels, they need to be given proof that their side is guilty of this stuff as well. Thus the laundry list of liberals spewing bile. Right now, the discussion is still at a level of ‘liberals don’t do that. Ok, well, maybe the extreme does but not the mainstream. Ok, well maybe there were tens of thousands who did that, but that wasn’t an elected Democrat. Ok, well an elected Democrat did that but you’re just trying to say we don’t need more civility’
That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying is that this is a problem coming from both sides. It can not and will not be fixed by focusing only on Beck/Palin. If we can all agree on that, THEN we can move on to if a more civil tone is even possible, and if so then how. But we’re a long way from the point. In general, many liberals around here are still in denial their side even spews hatred at all, much less that a more civil tone in politics would require the left to tone it down.
Good Christ, man, GeeDubya led us into a futile and disgusting war, besmirching our flag and our nation, and costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives! How should we have responded, with a “tsk, tsk” or an “oh, dear”?
The difference between Obermann and Beck isn’t a question of civility or tone, it’s that Obermann is largely telling the truth while Beck lies with every breath.
Cough Ann Coulter cough. Are you really suggesting that post-9/11, there were prominent and important people on the left–people, say, who speak at DNC events–who called Republicans the spawn of satan and suggest that conservatives should be executed? Don’t mention the Der Trihses of the world until you can show one who is a speaker at an important DNC event, or equally proiment.
During the Bush years, the conservative talk-radio FoxNews talking head goons were still a helluva lot more vituperative and just plain nasty than any prominent liberal I can think of.
Bricker: last year on May 1, a bunch of far-left anarchists came to my town and smashed up a bunch of businesses downtown. The police have charged 11 folks with the crime; their out-of-town friends are trying to turn them into a cause celebre. Wanna know who condemned them the most eloquently and soundly?
Our local communitarian anarchists, that’s who. They utterly loathe these guys, both for fucking with their local community and for undermining their message of anarchism as a peaceful alternative to capitalism.
I’m no anarchist (not any more, anyway), but I have tremendous respect for this response. It’s IME a pretty common one on the left. You want to find people who hate tree-spikers? Talk to Sierra Club members.
But even if it weren’t true, even if leftists were all as hypocritical as you long for us to be, it still wouldn’t matter, because that’s a boring question. The interesting question is, is nasty rhetoric in politics a good thing? Ad hominem attacks that suggest that people only object to it when it’s from the opposition are pointless and fallacious: even if that’s the only objection made so far, it doesn’t address the question of whether nasty rhetoric is a good thing.
Republicans are brownshirts and Democrats are the Salvation Army?
Czarcasm, there is your second. Without even looking for it I might add, that’s just the responses in half an hour. Do you really think there aren’t dozens of examples of dopers pretending the lefts shit don’t stink if I made an effort and looked at even one day of responses?
Read your link. This happened in 2010, not during the Bush years: I was responding to your specific claim that the party not in power is worse.
But I’m curious–do you think that Kanjorski is as prominent as Ann Coulter? Really, do you? Did this guy with his (yes, over-the-top and nasty) rhetoric speak to the DNC?
Nonsense. I didn’t say nobody on the left does it: I said that nobody prominent does it as nastily as the Ann Coulters do.
In case you need it said, yes, Kanjorski sounds like an idiot from the tiny bit about him I now know. When he gets a gig on MSNBC, lemme know.
I think it depends on what you mean as ‘prominent’. The public is probably more aware of what Ann Coulter says more than pretty much any Congressman besides, perhaps, Reid or Pelosi. The public is definitely more aware of Beck or Limbaugh. However, since there will always be some moronic asshole or cunt spewing pure vitriol, I’d rather it be a talking head than someone who actually has the power to influence our laws with his narrow minded hatred. It shit must be thrown, it’s better that there’s no chance of the force of the government being used to throw it.
Craig Kilborn is a prominent liberal? Seriously, this is what you have?
Note that everyone involved apologized profusely, as was appropriate.
Who? Again, not prominent. Significantly, from your own link, she apologized for that comment.
Yes, people say asshole things. What I’m on about is not one-off stupid jokes or outbursts that are later apologized for: what I’m on about is continuous inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes the opposition and attempts to place them outside of the national discourse by declaring them traitors, not real Americans, etc.
I’d rather nobody do it, that’s the key point. But it’s worth remembering that these prominent assholes aren’t the ones who are pulling the trigger: it’s the unstable lunatics who listen to them who pull the trigger*. As such, I’d rather have it be some nobody who represents bumfuck PA than someone who has a daily three-hour radio show listened to by millions.
Edit: * Obviously in this case the would-be-assassin didn’t pull the trigger because of Palin’s map. I’m speaking more generally about one of the excellent reasons to tone down the nasty rhetoric.
Ok, so an elected Democrat to the US Congress is not prominent in your mind. A person with a nationally televised program is not prominent in your mind. And the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize is not prominent in your mind. I’m starting to think the problem isn’t that you don’t believe the left says this sort of shit, the problem is your idea of prominent seems to be rather ummmm unique. I’m done posting examples. I’m sure I could go to Rosie O’Donnell, she’s always been pretty good about spewing this sort of shit, but I’d rather not. Especially since I’m sure that, for some reason or another, she wouldn’t be considered ‘prominent’.
All fine, except that the example of someone pulling the trigger that started all this on the Dope actually wasn’t motivated by Beck/Palin/etc
Sorry for the double post, but I just realized. If you do not consider Kilborn a prominent liberal, then that actually means things are even worse. The hatred and wishes for Republicans violent death has become so acceptable, that even people who are mainstream instead of liberals have come to view it as ok. As opposed to the right, which so far hasn’t gotten a lot of mainstream people to call for snipers to shoot Obama.
Look, I gave you a standard, I’m not moving the goalposts. To reiterate, are there folks post-9/11 who spoke to the DNC or got a similarly large political pulpit who have said the nasty shit that Coulter has said?
There’s not. You can come up with all sorts of assholes nobody has ever heard of on the left who’ve said that sort of nasty shit, and you can come up with professional comedians who make one-off jokes that they apologize for, but the Jon Stewarts and Keith Olbermanns and Paul Krugmans and Al Frankens of the world just don’t rise to the level of nastiness of the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters and Glen Becks, not to my knowledge. When the only prominent people you can come up with for a tu quoque are folks nobody’s ever heard of or folks who aren’t primarily political, that’s pretty significant.
Edit: just saw your last post about Kilborn. What part of “he apologized” did you miss? Admittedly I’m finding apologies from everyone else involved but not Kilborn–it’s 11 years old and mostly being brought up now as a tu quoque by people who have no vested interest in mentioning his apology–but if he didn’t, then certainly he should have, as did everyone else involved in the incident. Nobody involved thought it was OK. If Ann Coulter’s revolting screeds were instead a one-off for which her bosses apologized and conducted an internal review, you might have something.
Now, now, I’m sure godix can find someone on the right apologizing for Rush Limbaugh saying “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus–living fossils–so we will never forget what these people stood for” or Ann Coulter saying “My only regret with Tim McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times building” or Glenn Beck’s “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.”
Really, somebody must have apologized for those, right?
Heh. To be clear, there are plenty of decent conservatives who find such crap frankly embarrassing, as they should, and who distance themselves from it. Conservatives as a whole are no more responsible for this rhetoric than Muslims as a whole are responsible for the House of Saud.
If, however, it turns out that after each of these statements the assholes’ bosses apologized and conducted an internal review to prevent any recurrences, instead of going “w00t ratings,” then you’ve got something comparable to Kilborn, assuming Kilborn was responsible for that image.
An elected Democrat Congressman is the entire reason the DNC exists. Your little game of insisting that I get someone speaking to the DNC is moronic considering the DNC’s sole reason of existing is to support and elect politicians. Politicians, who it turns out, flat out called for murder of their political rivals. But no no, you want a statement of some guy at a fund raiser because statements by the people the DNC exists for somehow aren’t prominent enough. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?
As for apologies, I’ve seen too many mea cupla apologies over the years to care about them. Mostly from celebrities rather than politicians, but still, unless there’s actually some action to try and make up for the harm caused, I just don’t believe any public figure’s apology. It’s just kinda an article of faith for me that wilson wasn’t sorry for you lie, kilborn wasn’t sorry for snipers wanted, Imus wasn’t sorry for nappy headed hoes, etc. At best, the unspoken words ‘that I got in trouble’ should be added behind ‘I’m sorry’.
Anyway, in the end, even when someone who the left elected into power, someone who help write our laws, someone who is among the small club of 535 the run the government calls for murder, it’s hand waved away as if that’s somehow unimportant and worthless. I can’t argue against a logic so twisted that you believe a US Congressman is meaningless, but some airheaded bimbo with a TV show isn’t. So I’ll just repeat what I said earlier, many dopers won’t accept extreme rhetoric comes from both sides, and I ain’t buying the ‘us liberals are soooo angelic’ bullshit.
Alright, how the hell did Jon Stewart get this list? I don’t know if that was an attempt to trap me in a ‘got ya’ or what, but out of all the people arguing for civility in discourse, he’s about the only one I think is sincere. Primarily because he’s the only one who was talking about it when it wasn’t a handy excuse to bash the other side and he’s one of the few that realizes, and speaks out against, either side when it happens.
Jon Stewart got on the list because he’s a prominent person who’s well known for speaking out about politics all the time–and he’s on the left. That’s how everyone on that list got there. You still seem to think that “prominent” includes people that nobody has ever heard of, or late-night talk-show hosts.
When I talk about nasty rhetoric from the right, I’m no more talking about Mel Gibson than I’ll accept talk about Kilborn as nasty rhetoric from the left. I’m no more talking about some crazy Republican congressperson from bumfuck Wyoming than I’ll accept crazy Democratic congressperson from bumfuck Pennsylvania: if nobody on the national scene knows who they are, they’re not prominent.
Yes, speaking to the RNC makes you more prominent than being a member of the RNC, just like speaking at a PETA meeting makes you more prominent than receiving a PETA magazine in the mail. Is this really so hard to understand?
As for the apology, we’re talking about the effect of the words on the unstable hoi polloi. If someone makes a dumb statement, but then apologizes, and doesn’t repeat it, that has a significantly different effect than making a dumb statement repeatedly and unapologetically. I seriously don’t think that’s controversial.