A modest proposal.
How about we on the Left start looking into a class-action libel suit against these moonshit batshiners?
(Psst. You grownups still clinging to the right wing? You libertarians still trying to convince yourselves that voting for Bush was the lesser of two evils? Y’all just got your Ward Churchill moment. Speak out or fuck off.)
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Unbelievable. You people scream all day about the "intolerance" of "fascist neocons"? And you want to SUE? LOL! Go ahead, sue away! Awwwww. Poor wittle babies getums feewings hurt? LOL! Bloody hypocrites.
Better hurry: they're trying to take away your ability to file class-action suits.
I am sorry, Mr. marcus, but when a blogger titles a post with “A Modest Proposal,” or a variation on same, they intend to make a satiric or hyperbolic point. (Libel being rather difficult to prove under American law, for which we usually give thanks.) —We do thank you for your initiative, though. Make sure to do the reading for next week’s lesson, on the theory and practice of Godwin’s Law.
More seriously: either you take Ascher’s and Wretchard’s and Simon’s and Reynolds’ and ad nauseum’s point as rhetorical, and see no real harm in hyperbolically accusing most of the West of being traitors and terrorists—in which case, why on Earth would one quibble with a phrase like “little Eichmanns”? Hyperbole, after all! Rhetoric! (Granted, I don’t know for a fact how you feel about Professor Churchill. I don’t even know you from Adam. I’m assuming, here.) —Or: you take their point seriously, and really do believe that all of us—48% of this country, last I checked—really are traitors and terrorists, in which case, God help us all.
Out of curiosity, though, which is it?
I can't figure out if you're specializing in incoherence or incontinence. Please clarify.
There was no hint of satire in the body of the post, title notwithstanding (although I was laughing). With liberals' track record of litigating over the slightest offense it's no wonder it was taken seriously. I guess you think you can spew any profane vitriol towards conservatives, then throw your hands up and say "Hey, just kidding!"
Right.
My point was not about somebody's opinion that liberals are "traitors" and "terrorists": it was about liberals' hypocrisy, which still stands.
I just read Kos' latest post ("I'm a Republican; f*** you.") He made no reference to Jonathan Swift; I'm assuming the hatred is real, not hyperbole. So don't offer me some red herring about what Reynolds or Simon or even Churchill said because that wasn't the point of my comment.
BTW, to answer your question: No, I don't think most of the West are traitors and terrorists; I don't even think most liberals are traitors and terrorists. I think that when Churchill and others make anti-American statements they are encouraging our Muslim enemies. I believe also that the American left still does not understand the gravity of the situation we face with terrorism: they are more concerned about the "rights" of detained hostiles (as Lynne Stewart was) than about the safety of innocents.
OK, I see what you mean now. I quite agree. But remember, satire is a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
From this post by the irreplaceable Poor Man. —Now, marcus: leaving aside for the moment the staggering leap of faith required to believe that everyone we have imprisoned and tortured and murdered is somehow a “hostile,” never once as innocent as the people we think we’re protecting: you say you don’t think I’m a terrorist, and, gosh, thanks. But a hell of a lot of people out there do, or at least have no problem saying they do. It’s patently untrue; we both agree. And we both agree that words matter: you, after all, are terribly concerned at the offhand chance some insurgents might hear the three-year-old remarks of an obscure Colorado professor and thereby be emboldened. How much more damaging, to all of us, is this enormous, slanderous, libellous untruth smeared over half the country? What responsibility do you have to speak out against it? What can—what must—I do, to fight it?
C'mon, k, you're forgetting the most important principle [sic] here:
IOKIYAR.
From that, all else shall follow...
I feel like I'm in a corn patch with all the straw men hanging about...
For the third and final time: my point was that, satire or not, the sentiments you put forth in your post accurately reflects the sentiments (unspoken or not) of many liberals. In today's lawsuit-happy society a class-action on the terms you set forth is not out of the realm of possibility. People will sue over anything. Maybe you meant it as satire, but the sad fact is that many liberals have become so hate-riddled over Bush their thinking patterns resemble what I call "incongruous satirical surrealism", i.e. "Airplane!", "Naked Gun", "Family Guy" etc.
"Hypocrisy" was the point. You did manage to get me off-message briefly with your irrelavant side issues. We could go back and forth all day with hstrionic accusations made on BOTH SIDES (IOKIYAR cuts both ways, i.e. IOKIYAD) but what's the point? I'm not trying to "bring you over to my side". I'm simply expressing my opinion, as are you.
This is your blog, so you get the last word. As for our differences, we'll just have to "agree to disagree".
I just love the idea that there is one, unified, all encompassing Left. If only!
marcus, since Kip has apparently decided to speak to you as if you are merely slow on the uptake rather than thoroughly disingenuous, I'll be a good guest and do so too.
See, Kip is responding to an accusation by some of the biggest right-wing blogs that "the left" is a big group of traitors who have made cause with our enemies (although how exactly they've squared that with the fact that Our Enemies have pretty much the same views on religion and morality and the role of both in law as, well, the right does kind of beggars imagination).
What he did with this post is emphasize and point out by using a parallel construction that "the left" should sue for libel.
Now, while Professor Reynolds and his friends are in fact making a slanderous allegation about a group of people, in fact that group of people they're discussing only exists in their fevered imaginations (or at least the fevered imaginations of the good Professor's friends, as I'm fairly certain he just thinks this is a good tack to take to fire up the base behind gutting social security, and that's what little Robert Novak wannabes do).
So (follow me here) they have not in fact said anything actionable about anyone who can take action.
Nobody can sue here.
This is bush-league McCarthyite crap, and most of the people shovelling it know perfectly well what it is. It's just in their best interest to keep the flames high so working class voters will get all fired up about the eeeeevul liberals and not notice when their kid's school and grandma's pension head to the coasts in the pockets of Republican donors.
I recommend http://m-w.com for the hard words.
Eh. It's intemperate right wingers. I don't get worked up by the red guard at kos; why should I get worked up about these birchers with a twentienth the traffic?
Roger L. Simon? Glenn Reynolds? Andrew Sullivan, though he seems to have mostly repented, still, had a heaping helping hand in launching the meme? Various members of the administration currently running the country? Birchers with a twentieth the traffic?
At least you didn't try for Reynolds' defense: "Dude. He was talking about the European Left." Heh. Indeed.
I'm not sure the original post helps much, but the responses to it are bordering on the pathological. There are a number of different leftist ideologies, even in the mainstream of American politics, just as there are a number of different rightist ideologies, all vying for certain levels of control. I would recommend this little handout.
Litigation works, in many instances to write imbalances in terms of the application of law. It can also be used to exacerbate imbalances. For example, MS use of contract law to suppress third party innovation or the suit they helped fund in which SCO tried to find the GPL legally insufficient.
As for the Ward Churchill moment and its rejoinders, suffice it to say, as an academic who has read quite a bit of Churchill for research in intercollegiate debate, he was never an icon of the left, nor is he considered a particularly interesting scholar. Same goes for many of the professors on the right. Still, in this country, people get to say obnoxious things, and we get to dismiss them as being too facile to merit much more than a roll of the old eyeballs.
As for the fiction of the left that so animates Glenn and other's animosity, well, let them have it. Reynolds, Sullivan, Scarborough, O'Reilly, etc - have all made a career out of speaking about their victimhood, their constant marginilization from the mainstream media, even as they do so using the media, and folks like Matlin and Coulter and Goldberg have made a career of saying bombastic but utterly uninteresting things. More power to them. If you want to sell and celebrate stupidity, do it. But as a proud member of the fiction that I call the left, I say fuck that. If the left stands for anything, it's the whole gamut of what it means to use freedom and speech and access and community, what it means today, here now, as well as what it meant to our founding fathers - critical thinking. Everything else is just pandering disguised as punditry disguised as insight.
You did manage to get me off-message
And that's what it's all about isn't it, you feeb? Marcus you're the only crybaby around here. You just couldn't wait to start wailing. Marcus is just like the rest of them--tough talk until you shout back; then they bleat like sheep.
A couple of carefully selected suits for slander or libel against the popular agitpropers would back these bullies up a few steps. I'm all for it myself.
This is depressingly familiar.
Rightists (of varying stripes) feel
entirely comfortable painting the
opposition as disloyal, traitorous,
anti-Western, anti-American, anti-freedom
scum of the earth. This is, apparently,
a robust expression of free speech.
When the opposition criticizes any or all
rightists in language spicier than a
Walter Mondale concession speech, suddenly
we're cheapening and coarsening public discourse.
Reminds me of how corporate executives who make five hundred times what the average employee makes are heroic captains of capitalism, but a journalist who mentions that fact in an article is engaging in class warfare. . . .
Marcus, did Kos post the "I'm Republican, so f*** you"? Ah, no, he didn't. Somebody else did. Somebody with even less influence than Kos. Just some poster at dKos, a free-for-all that is very lightly, if at all, regulated.
Next: You seem to think that liberals are the ones suing everyone else. Those data don't exist. However, data that do exist show that BY FAR the group that uses up court time is...CORPORATIONS. And a lot of that is one corp suing another. Who knew all those corporations were so liberal?
Next: As to who understands the gravity of terrorism...We now have a perfect and perfectly predictable Shia fundamentalist crescent seared across the ME. Who'd a thunk this would have happened? How about hundreds of ME experts and scholars, from both the LEFT and the RIGHT, including people in Bush's own State Dept. And yet we read today that the Administration is shocked! shocked I tell you! that their boy was drubbed in the elections and that the Shia with the Kurds as back-up are pretty hep to strengthen ties with Iran.
Bee-a-fucking-utiful.
And we still don't know where OBL is. AQ - remember them?
To paraphrase the Cap'n, "It's not that we don't take the situation seriously, it's that we don't take YOU seriously."
...he was never an icon of the left, nor is he considered a particularly interesting scholar.
Amen.
I just love the idea that there is one, unified, all encompassing Left. If only!
Double amen.
As for a "Ward Churchill moment"—doesn't the Trent Lott gaffe about Strom Thurmon count? The differences are instructive: Lott as a political animal was subject to criticism by all but the Ann Coulter crowd and disciplined by his own party (losing the majority seat is no mean reprimand). On the other hand, Churchill can claim legitimately for protection by tenure and principles of academic freedom. All the hot air from the Governor of Colorado about taxpayer's dough is just that, because he and his ilk fail to understand this distinction. Politicians are accountable. Professors with tenure are not. For good reason.
marcus seems to forget, or doesn't know, that a basic a priori fact about lawyers is that they are greedy and they will not take on any lawsuit where they will not get boo-ko buckos. it's simply false that liberals sue willy-nilly over every little thing, even if they wanted to.
btw, kip, nice site change. haven't been here in a while. i really, really like it. hope all is well with ya!
Kirsten,
Attorneys take cases all the time pro bono. In fact, it's mandated by the Bar. I'm married to a public defender and I know a lot of civil and criminal defense attorneys and plaintiff's attorneys and prosecutors. None of them hold a candle to the typical wingnut when it comes to greed. In fact, the two most generous people I know are attorneys.
Our system of contingency fees serves society well. Without it, there would be even less recourse for the average Joe to be compensated for real damage caused by another entity. Don't confuse greed with the simple need to recoup costs and run a business. Some attorneys get rich from this system; most are simply middle class.
OTOH, there are attorneys who are scumbags - just like there are doctors, teachers, veterinarians, journalists, sanitation engineers, bloggers, etc. who are scumbags.
To whom should leftists who weren't notified of the Current Hidden Agenda complain? I'm feeling left-out (ahem) here. How'm I supposed to stay on-message if no-one's getting to me with the message?
JULIA,
PAUL said, "A couple of carefully selected suits for slander or libel against the popular agitpropers would back these bullies up a few steps. I'm all for it myself."
That was my point the whole time. In spite of Kip's use of satire, I believe most libs would sue if they could. It is the desire (private or public) of libs to silence the voice of us conservs, which segues into my other point: hypocrisy. Libs are always touting how they are "tolerant" and conservs are "intolerant". Paul's attitude nicely illustrates this dissimulation. The ACLU nicely illustrates this dissimulation.
You say, "Paul's attitude is the exception." I was born, but it wasn't yesterday. Maybe Markos didn't write "I'm a Republican: f*** you" but he allowed it. This is what passes for "discourse" at Kos (who said of contactors being decapitated in Iraq, "Screw 'em", and that was from Markos' own mouth). Both sides have their nutters who resort to profane histrionics; the difference is that conservs generally disapprove of this behavior from their own (see Sean Hannity's remarks about FreeRepublic) while libs generally encourage it, or at least look the other way.
In any case, I'll be moving along now. Thanks for the relatively insult-free responses.
Marcus, you say that the conservative movement disapproves of profane histronics. I guess you WERE born yesterday if you can't remember where the profane histronics started, who perfected it, and who continues to be the champ. Hint: It's not the party of milquetoasts, aka, the Democrats.
Who flipped the bird on the floor of the Senate? Some minor player? Some conservative blogger? A page? No, it was the 2nd in command of the Republican party. A LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT. Your very own Dick Cheney.
Newt Gingrich, the true father of the modern conservative movement, DEFINES profane histronics. Hell, he perfected it on the floor of the House, day after day, specifically for the cameras. Newt began the whole movement of calling anyone who disagrees somehow unAmerican. Was Newt some mewling nobody? Was he a fringe element of the conservative movement? NO, HE WAS THE LEADER OF THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS.
Who screamed at the top of his lungs "WE'RE GOING TO FUCK HIM LIKE HE'S NEVER BEEN FUCKED BEFORE!!" and then was proud and pleased that the episode was disseminated. Was that some conservative nobody? Some guy with a blog somewhere? No, that'd be Turd Blossom Rove,THE ARCHITECT OF THE CONSERVATIVE POWERPLAY, THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF.
I challenge you to listen to ONE SINGLE AFTERNOON of Rush Limbaugh and tell me he didn't resort to profane histronics. Rush has been touted BY EVERY SINGLE LEADER OF THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT SINCE REAGAN.
Your own example, SEAN HANNITY, can't go an hour on TV without resorting to profane histronics. AND YOU APPROVE OF HIM. Heck of an example you chose.
Contrary to the bilge that you're splashing around here, the fact is that conservatives generally and specifically approve of this behavior. The leaders of the conservative movement practice profane histronics. All of the mouthpieces of the conservative movement practice profane histronics. The followers of the leaders and mouthpieces of the conservative movement both practice and approve of profane histronics. You really must have been born yesterday if you aren't aware of this.