Coulter is a bomb-thrower. Her whole shtick is to yell FIRE! in a crowded theater, then to sit back and watch the fun while counting her money.
The last thing we need right now are bomb throwers. Coulter should crawl back into whatever hole she crawled out of.
That said, the notion that there aren’t equally vile people on the left is ridiculous. Ward Churchill is a good example, but jeez, the leader of the Democratic Party is running around saying things like, "This is a fight between good and evil, and we Democrats are the good, " and “I hate Republicans. I hate everything they stand for. I hate everything about them.”
This from a guy who was on the short list to be President, and is now one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic party. And if you don’t think there hasn’t been hate speech against Republicans from the likes of Sontag, Ted Rall, Noam Chomsky, and half the middle-eastern studies departments and women’s studies departments in the U.S., you haven’t been paying attention.
And every time I see a left-wing rally or demonstration, there are always loads of spittle-flecked maniacs holding signs calling Republicans murderers and screaming “FASCIST!” at the police trying to do their jobs.
Coulter is flat out saying that we need to intimidate liberals with executions, or they will become outright traitors like John Walker.
I haven’t heard anyone else on either side say anything close to that unbridled hatred and lies.
Coulter tells us that we have to use executions to prevent liberals from joining terrorists en masse like John Walker. That is a statement about what liberals WILL do. They are already traitors at heart, but they will become outright traitors like John Walker unless we use executions to stop them.
Seriously, that is pure evil, and the fact that she has people cheering her on is genuinely scary. I don’t even think it is just a partisan thing, because I don’t know anyone else on either side who reaches her level of evil and lies.
You would have to have someone saying “We need to execute anyone convicted of a hate crime to show conservatives that they can be killed too. Otherwise, conservatives are all going to go on mass murder sprees against minorities.”
Now, if you are conservative, and you hear people cheering this sentiment on, what would you think?
Exactly how is this difference from the “with us or against us” rhetoric of the current United States President over the past few years? This was quite clearly directed not only at nations abroad, but at opponents at home.
Also, it’s interesting how those in power, when looking at divisiveness and hatefulness, tend to focus only on words, not actions. Bush might not have said in so many words that he hates any particular set of Americans, but his politics demonstrate a hatefulness that transcend any speechmaking, that place certain groups of Americans together as outsiders, as people undeserving of even basic human consideration. That, to me, is a worse—or at least more powerful—type of hatefulness than anything Ann Coulter might spew or Ward Churchill might say.
That was my thread, but I don’t think the comparison with Coulter is valid. My point was that, given that the Republicans have a racist element to the party, and that the leader truckles to that element via “code” stuff like opposing Affirmative Action and so forth, could it be said that anyone who is a Republican can be called a racist, since by advancing the cause of the Republican Party, they are also advancing the cause of the racist element of the party?
It’s part of my general interest in one’s responsibility for membership in groups. What responsibility does an individual bear for the actions of a group he or she is a member of? What responsibility does the group as a whole share for the actions of elements of the group who are, shall we say, redolent of evil?
It was an interesting argument, actually, not the trollish potshot you would like to characterize it as. Most posters disagreed with me vigorously, but that’s OK. If Coulter’s accusation has any logical basis to it, I’ve yet to hear of it.
In case it’s not clear, I definitely acknowledge that there are intelligent, thoughtful, goodhearted conservatives, both here on the SDMB and in real life–and in pundit circles. Gladly admitted.
I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your advice: reading her book might be good for my moral fiber, but it’d be bad for my blood pressure. I’ve read enough of her columnic calumny to know that.
I’ll make my real point after the next quote.
Note that it’s not had the kind of success that, say, Rush Limbaugh has found, either. Now, it’s possible that Franken isn’t as funny as Rush, although I find his dry wit to be hilarious. It’s also possible, though, that there are a large majority of leftists who, like me, can’t stand the sort of vitriol and slander that Air America’s other hosts regularly spew.
Almost half the country voted for a Democrat last time. More than half the country voted for a Democrat or a freakin’ Green the time before that. There ought to be an audience for crazy hatespewing leftist demogogues just like there’s an audience for crazy hatespewing rightist demogogues. Why isn’t there?
I suspect it has to do with the majority of leftists, rather than with the minority of them who ARE hateful.
I’m definitely not saying that. I am, however, saying that the lies and insults of Ann Coulter help the Republican cause, and I think that’s a shame.
Sure, absolutely. Do those maniacs sell millions of books to their fellow protestors? Do the vast majority of leftists pay them any attention?
I’m happy to stipulate that. My question is, why do the conservative non-nutters keep the conservative nutters in business? I’m certainly not donating money to the Keep-the-Dressing-Tosser-Out-of-Jail fund.
Believe what you want, brownnose lickspittle, but the rhetoric of this administration has been to demonize everyone that disagrees with it, home or abroad.
There is just as much of such an audience on the left as on the right. And, in my view, just as many crazy hate-spewing leftist demagogues rushing to fill the void on their side as there are rushing to fill the void on the other side.
There isn’t more of such a void on the right as there is on the left. And therefore conservative talk radio (and Bush and Republicans in general) is not more successful because of that, but for other reasons.
You can only convince yourself that hate on the right is more prevalent if you keep repeating, “Ward Churchill doesn’t count. Noam Chomsky doesn’t count. Howard Dean doesn’t count. Al Sharpton doesn’t count. Only Ann Coulter counts. Thus hate is more prevalent on the right. QED.”
Not at all: I DO count them. I count their book sales. And I’m willing to bet you that the bestselling book of each of the people you mentioned, combined, doesn’t add up to Ann Coulter’s last book. Leftists ain’t buying Ward Churchill in droves–that’s my point.
Once more, I’m not counting the Ann Coulters of the world versus the Ward Churchills. I’m counting the Ann Coulter FANS versus the Ward Churchill FANS. See the difference?
Oh, and for the record, the only one of those people that comes close to Ann Coulter status in terms of hateful vitriol is Ward Churchill. You may think Chomsky’s a lunatic and Sharpton’s a charlatan (and I’ll half-agree with you), but they’re not the kind of hateful assholes that Coulter and Churchill are.
Here we are in total agreement, and I appreciate you saying so
There are vile people on the left. Very vile people. I make no attempt to deny their existence. However, I don’t know if there are any who combine vileness, prominence, cold-blooded-libel, and faux respectability to the extent that Ann Coulter does.
Of what? A fringe nutcase who no one would have ever heard of if it weren’t for the fact that he’s being soundly lambasted by everyone, including everyone on the left (as far as I can tell)? Ward Churchill is no more representative of a liberal groundswelling of opinion than Fred Phelps is representative of a conservative groundswelling of opinion, whereas Ann Coulter is a bestselling author. That’s the difference. (If I’m wrong, and if you’re constantly finding yourself at lunch with groups of liberals all of whom have read the works of Ward Churchill and greatly praise them, please let me know.)
And I wish he hadn’t said those things, going back to what you were saying earlier about bomb-throwing. But don’t you see a difference between someone getting angry and saying that he hates his opponents, and even calling them evil (I’m assuming those quotes (if they are direct quotes) were in the heat of passion) and someone writing a totally sober book whose thesis is “All liberals are traitors”?
None of whom are comparable to Ann Coulter. And none of whom (and this is a HUGELY important point) are popular among large segments of the liberal population the way Ann Coulter, based on her book sales, is popular among conservatives.
A few general thoughts:
(1) This thread was specifically about Ann Coulter. She is a truly awful person in many ways. Couldn’t you just respond by saying “yes, she is” and walk away? Why must you attempt to dig up equally bad people on the other side? I swear on a stack of bibles that there isn’t some referee watching, and if I say Ann Coulter is awful, and not enough people point out equally awful liberals, suddenly we’ve “scored a point” and then are winning or something. (Although I admit that if someone started a thread pointing out genuinely bad things a particular liberal had done, plenty of liberals would go into that thread to point out bad things quasi-comparable conservatives had done.)
(2) Right now, I claim that the generally visible and prominent conservatives pundits are, on the average, MUCH worse than the generally visible and prominent liberal pundits, when it comes to reason, accountability, honesty, and decency. Largely, this is due to two of them (Ann and Michael Savage), both of them authors of bestsellers, both of them without real equivalents that I’m aware of in liberal punditry. Do you agree or disagree? And remember, agreeing with this doesn’t mean you’re admitting that all conservatives are idiots or racists or that you are an idiot or a racist or anything, just that the popular conservative pundits right now include a depressing number of worthless heaps of shit. If you want to make an equivalent claim about, say, liberal congresspeople, or liberal intellectuals, that is your right, but does not affect this particular claim one way or the other.
Once again, I don’t think you can automatically assume that people who buy her books are fans. If Osama bin Laden published a book, not doubt it would become a best seller in the US. Would that mean that he had millions of fans in the US?
What you are doing is assuming that the primary reason Coulter is successful is that she is a hateful asshole.
You did much the same thing here:
You “half agree” that Chomsky is a lunatic, but not a hateful asshole - presumably because he makes some good points amongst his assholery.
Apply the same standard to Coulter. Sure she’s an asshole - but that does not entirely explain her appeal.
Not that the same thing doesn’t happen with me. I am not a big Rush Limbaugh fan, but I dislike him a hell of a lot less than whatever that clown’s name is who does drive-time talk radio on Air America in my market. Because I sympathize more with Rush’s politics than I do with whoever it is. I think Ann Coulter says a lot of stupid and inflammatory things. So does Maxine Waters. So does Howard Dean. But I would be stupid if I said Dean got to be the head of the Democratic party because he is willing to say that Democrats are good and Republicans are evil. There has to be more to him than that.
Once, maybe. But consistently? I could see someone who disagreed with Coulter buying one of her books as a lark, or to understand “the other side,” or just to work themselves into a righteous lather… but it seems unlikely to me that they’d do it consistently, for every book she released. The Unabomber is a good example: people bought his manifesto because his crimes were Big News at the time, and they wanted to know what was up with this nutcase. If he’d tried to publish a second book, I don’t think it would sell at all, because the first book scratched the public’s itch. I think your scenario only works if Coulter is a novelty. She’s been around too long for that, and shows no signs of going any where any time soon. More’s the pity.
Of course, if you’re right about her audience, and her books are being bought primarily by people who dislike her, that’s just as bad. Political discourse in this country is just as badly served by Coulter, wether her books are giving a conservative audience a distorted picture of American liberals, or a liberal audience a distorted picture of American conservatives.
Coulter is occasionally just as funny as some of the more mainstream comic acts on television. The main difference is that Coulter doesn’t admit to being a comedian.
Liberals are much more apt to say hateful, damaging, disgusting things than Conservatives. They also stoop to selling vile garbage like this.
The petty, vicious hate shown in these products and many others of their ilk is typical of the left’s lunatic fringe. The far right are bad too, but I don’t see any t-shirts asking Dean or any other Democrat to commit suicide.
Your link was to a bunch of different cafepress products, many liberal, a few conservative, some unrelated to politics entirely. There was one which has “suicide” in its name, but it was removed and I couldn’t see it. What did it say?
Anyhow, do you think that’s worse than this?
And, more to the point, do you have any convincing argument, statistic, or anecdote to back up your broad and sweeping claim?
And was written by some nobody who isn’t treated like a serious commentator by one of the United States’ largest news organizations, unlike Ann Coulter.
Who I notice has a shirt of her own, the lucky skank.
I’m happy to stipulate that. My question is, why do the conservative non-nutters keep the conservative nutters in business? I’m certainly not donating money to the Keep-the-Dressing-Tosser-Out-of-Jail fund.