I certainly agree that there was a massive uptick in anger-of-discourse during the Clinton years, but (perhaps not surprisingly) I would blame it more on the right than the left. Nonetheless, the point is, books are a different medium than street protests or radio call ins or campus demonstrations or many other media. There’s a huge difference between someone leading a campus protest where most of the protestors are carrying signs reading “republicans = racist”, and that person sitting down and writing a book whose title and premise and entire reason for being is to make that point, apparently with no irony or hyperbole. Demonstrations are hyperbolic and transitory. Books are well thought out and last forever.
I am hardly an expert on the scope of her writings, but the idea that liberals were traitorous unamericans was hardly new and original to her, she was just the first one with the lack of shame to write a book literally and unapologetically espousing that point of view.
What was that point? I have no context…
I think you’re not taking this sufficiently seriously. There’s an insidious impact that hateful speech, even hateful speech that is intellectually recognized as hyperbole, can have. You say “liberals hate America” enough times, and even someone who, when polled, would answer “no” to “do liberals hate America?” might well start believing that, well, SOMETHING must be true, I mean, why else would people keep saying all these things? And there’s a trickle down effect, where if Ann Coulter is saying things THAT hateful, other more reasonable writers who before her would have been constrained by decency feel like “well, I can say X or Y with no disclaimers or qualifiers, and I still won’t be even halfways as evil as Ann Coulter, and she’s a bestselling respected author, so it must be OK”.
Books are certainly a different medium, but that hardly excuses hyperbole at a protest (or on a message board, a newspaper column, a meeting hall, etc.).
Books are NOT well thought out. Coulter’s recent one was just a collection of her prior quotes from columns that she bangs out. I hardly consider that well thought out.
As for them lasting forever, they only last forever if they actually grab the public and keep with it. I have some old political books on my shelves that are dated and irrelevant (especially the ones talking about the evil Soviets!)
I just do not worry about Coulter being a cited source in future classrooms (other than as an example of right-wing vitriol).
So the bitch writes books that sell? Why can’t the left do the same? They tried to compete with Rush, and failed on the radio. The Left seems to do better with the bloggers, though I could be wrong. This has more to do with the marketplace than with Coulter herself.
You must have missed the point. The “all” in Coulter’s case is something read in to her statement. Here you’ve stated it explicitly. Lert me ask you tis—because this is what it bils down to: do you think that Coulter believes that ALL liberals are traitors?
And if you do, how do you explain her now dating a jewish liberal democrat?
I have two responses to that:
(1) To a certain extent, it does. Slogans for protests need to be short and punchy and get your point across. “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today” is a perfectly reasonable protest slogan, but an entire book entitled “LBJ the child-killer” would be a bit hard to take seriously.
(2) Additionally, much of the point is not that one crazy insane bitch wrote a book, but that she wrote a book which became a bestseller. If some group of overexcited people on a college campus somewhere call someone a nazi, well, there are plenty of groups of overexcited people saying hyperbolic things in the world. If they write a book calling you a nazi and then 5 million people buy it, THEN you have something to worry about.
I clearly intended to be saying that books SHOULD, and CAN be well thought out. Protests and jokes and comments on radio shows and stuff can’t be, purely logistically. If I write something down in a book, either I’m an irresponsible tool, or the thing I wrote down is something that I gave a fair amount of thought to, a position I definitely hold and support. This is more true of books than of just about any other medium of communication.
They can. Ann’s new book is currently #91 on Amazon’s bestseller list.
Currently also on the list are: #90God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
#86The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman
#82Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House by Valerie Plame Wilson
#55The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf
and
#5I am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
Interestingly, though, not a single one of those books has a title which is an insult directed at every member of an entire political party.
First of all, please go away and come back when you want to actually contribute something to the conversation. Second of all, just off the top of my head, there’s Dennis Kucinich’s wife.
Well, if “liberals hate America” doesn’t mean “all liberals hate America”, what does it mean?
And even if it MIGHT mean something different, then in a sense she’s being even sleazier, in writing something that easily can (and will) be read to mean “all” while not actually using the word “all”, thus allowing herself a bit of plausible deniability.
My guess is that she writes in her preposterously over-the-top style because it sells books, not because she believes that all liberals, or even most liberals, or even many liberals, or even more than a very small fraction of liberals at the most, literally hate America. But it DOES sell books. Although not necessarily more than, say, Al Franken’s style, or Stephen Colbert’s style. But, and here’s the point, I don’t think she cares about the damage that her style does. Or if she does, she doesn’t care enough to overcome the financial lure.
A different response: If she doesn’t mean ALL liberals, why doesn’t she say so? I read a collection of essays once called “The ‘I Hate Republicans’ Reader”, which I agree is a pretty divisive title for a book. But it had a preface saying (paraphrased) “note that we are not talking about average Republican citizens, who are your neighbors, your friends. They are nice, generous, patriotic, intelligent people blah blah blah. Rather, we are talking about the national leaders of the Republican party. It is THEM that we hate”. Where is that sort of statement from Ann Coulter?
It’s not been “read into” her statement, it’s an explicit part of her hypothesis, stated many times in many places. Does she actually believe it? Perhaps not, but it’s certainly obvious that she wants to be perceived as believing it to be true, and to persuade others that it is true.
Easy. Along with her seemingly endless list of other moral failings, she’s also a hypocrite.
My guess is that she thinks that her using a flamboyant style is justified in that in brings attention to the issue she wants to raise. (And she is right about that.) That, and she wants to sell books.
Personally I don’t see Coulter as THE problem, or even a big part of it. I think she does contribute to it. But if you look at all she’s written, and balance that against the .0001% of it that is indeed over the top, I don’t think she’s doing badly. Now that .0001% bugs me, for the contribution it makes to the coarsening of the dialogue, and also for the fact that it gives opponents a way to discount her larger point. (more coming on that)
I actually take the opposite position. I think you have more leeway with a book because you’re going to have ample opportunity to explain precisely what you mean. When you opt for shock value over accuracy on a poster, you’re just showing the limitations of your writing ability, imagination, and honesty.
Maybe you should read the book. Maybe you’d end up understanding her actual positions better and even agreeing with some of them. :eek: Possibly the one below.
Her point that these people are pulled into to be spokesmen for specific causes specifically because it is difficult to argue with them due to their victimm status. Two other examples she used was Cindy Sheehan (in the early days) to shit on Bush and the war and Max Cleeland to lay into Bush &Co. as a bunch of chicken-hawks. Her point was that their victim status does not make them right, but it stifles the debate. So the 9/11 widows needn’t be treated like innocent injured lambs when they hit the airways demanding investigations, blaming Bush, etc. Their arguments she be confronted and argued against just as if it were you or I making them.
So, do you agree with her on that? I certainly do.
I think you make a good overall point. But who is saying this over and over again? Who are all these people? Look at her articles. She talks about many different issues. I think a better example of what you fear comes from the other side. From the army of people whose mantra is “Bush is an idiot.” Now, I am no fan of Bush, but come on, as cruel as he is to the language, he’s certainly no idiot. But by this being said time and again in so many ways by so many people, your very fear comes true: people who might not understand the nuanced intention (when it’s there) actually thiink Bush is an idiot. Now if he is an idiot, that opens the door for even more disparaging things to be said about him. I love the latest from that escapee from Munchkinland, Kucinich. He has offered a bill to impeach because he’s mentally deranged. Now think about the effect of this. We have a chant of an untruth about our President repeated so often (sheeze, the books alone) that it becomes almost a truism, thereby greatly diminishing his capacity to lead the country.
I don’t seem to recall you being so concerned about caustic language when it comes to our President the few years I’ve been on these boards. Did I miss it?
I just noticed this on refresh. You are a dishonest little piece of shit, aren’t you, BrainGlutton? Let’s look at your work here. We start with a safe liitle slap that would be hard to call you on: “the most openly racist”. So either they are simply “openly racist”, which would be easy for us all to see and for you to show us—or they might have just a slight tinge of it, but more than any of the other racist groups. You slippery devil. Then you give yourself another out—actually a double out—by saying they “generally use euphemisms”. Hmm.
Well, if they use euphemisms they wouldn’t be openly racist, would they? But wait, they only “generally” use them, right? Okay. Please cite those instances that they didn’t do what they do generally (use euphemisms) and flat out used racist language.
:dubious: So you think that making extreme denigrations and accusations about one political leader—who has deliberately chosen to put himself in the public eye, and who has innumerable opportunities to present his own side of the story at full length in the national media—is worse for the cause of truth in political discourse than making extreme denigrations and accusations about large groups of the American people in general?
Yes. While Bush did put himself in the game and should be able to take what’s thrown at him, I do not think it benefits us to have our President’s leadership undermined by a chant you fit on a bumper sticker. And I am not a fan of Bush by any stretch of the imagination. Never voted for him. Never would. I was depressed for a week when he even got the nomination.
