Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Who Are the Real Traitors?
Okay, I shouldn't be guilty of running a Pope-a-thon myself, so let met get back to the Archbitchop of sleaze, Ann Coulter. Over at Hullabaloo, Digby points out, rightly, that even though Ann Coulter is a no-talent, shrill, annoying hack (my words), we still have to take her lionization by the media seriously, because the bullshit she sells can seriously damage the Liberal cause.
Or is that an understatement? This is a woman, after all, who publicly advocates the assassination of Liberals, calling us traitors. Quoth Digby:
Example. You have a child who's in school. You love that child dearly, but they just aren't quite performing up to expectations. (Grammarians, ignore that construction, I'm trying to avoid the awkward he/she). Anyway... your child gets a D in Social Studies. If you love your child, you're not going to ignore that D. You're going to talk to the child, start a dialogue, figure out why the bad grade, figure out how to help the child improve. You're going to study with your child, or get a tutor, or arrange a meeting with the teacher to discuss a joint solution. In short, yes, you're going to focus on that D and point out its existence and do what you can to fix it -- if you love your child.
If you don't love your child, then you're going to go all batshit crazy on the teacher, blame them for the grade, accuse them of hating your child, pull all kinds of excuses and point all kinds of fingers. You might even consider suing the school. You're going to do anything you can to avoid realizing the obvious. It was your child who earned the D, not the teacher who gave it. And your little precious is going to grow up thinking that it's quite all right if they only do D or F work because, well, mommy and/or daddy told them it wasn't their fault.
The above analogy is exactly how Liberals and Conservatives treat America. Liberals do not hate America. We love this country, which is why we hold it to higher standards. Political corruption may be okay in Mexico; Parliamentary fist-fights the norm in Japan; Nepotism in government perfectly acceptable in lots of other places. But when our country, our child, our hope for the world behaves badly and flunks out on the international scene, we want to fix it. We want to find out what caused the problem, we want to find solutions, we want to make America better. If that sometimes leads to finger-pointing and negatives and all that -- well, that's how you improve, by fixing the bad. You don't improve by claiming everything is good in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
In other words, you don't behave like a Conservative. You don't insist that your country can and will and never has done anything wrong. You don't blame Liberals or the media or illegal immigrants or communists or North Korea or anybody else for the wrong actions your country has taken. If you love your country, you don't do any of those things that shift blame, ignore problems, pretend everything is just peachy dandy okay keen.
If you love your country, you don't behave like a Conservative. Because it's pretty damn obvious to me, and should be to anyone who's paying attention, that Conservatives hate America. Conservatives are the true traitors to this great nation.
Or is that an understatement? This is a woman, after all, who publicly advocates the assassination of Liberals, calling us traitors. Quoth Digby:
It has become clear to me that we are frogs being slowly boiled to death. And the media are enjoying the hot tub party so much that they are helping to turn up the heat.The thing that Coulter & Company don't get, or refuse to get, is that Liberals do not hate America. It's exactly the opposite. Liberals love America a hell of a lot more than Conservatives do, which is exactly why we can and do point to its faults.
Ann Coulter is not, as Howie Kurtz asserts today, the equivalent of Michael Moore. Michael Moore is is not advocating the murder of conservatives. He just isn't. For instance, he doesn't say that Eric Rudolph should be killed so that other conservatives will learn that they can be killed too. He doesn't say that he wishes that Tim McVeigh had blown up the Washington Times Bldg. He doesn't say that conservatives routinely commit the capital offense of treason. He certainly doesn't put up pictures of the fucking snoopy dance because one of his political opponents was killed. He doesn't, in other words, issue calls for violence and repression against his political enemies. That is what Ann Coulter does, in the most coarse, vulgar, reprehensible way possible.
Example. You have a child who's in school. You love that child dearly, but they just aren't quite performing up to expectations. (Grammarians, ignore that construction, I'm trying to avoid the awkward he/she). Anyway... your child gets a D in Social Studies. If you love your child, you're not going to ignore that D. You're going to talk to the child, start a dialogue, figure out why the bad grade, figure out how to help the child improve. You're going to study with your child, or get a tutor, or arrange a meeting with the teacher to discuss a joint solution. In short, yes, you're going to focus on that D and point out its existence and do what you can to fix it -- if you love your child.
If you don't love your child, then you're going to go all batshit crazy on the teacher, blame them for the grade, accuse them of hating your child, pull all kinds of excuses and point all kinds of fingers. You might even consider suing the school. You're going to do anything you can to avoid realizing the obvious. It was your child who earned the D, not the teacher who gave it. And your little precious is going to grow up thinking that it's quite all right if they only do D or F work because, well, mommy and/or daddy told them it wasn't their fault.
The above analogy is exactly how Liberals and Conservatives treat America. Liberals do not hate America. We love this country, which is why we hold it to higher standards. Political corruption may be okay in Mexico; Parliamentary fist-fights the norm in Japan; Nepotism in government perfectly acceptable in lots of other places. But when our country, our child, our hope for the world behaves badly and flunks out on the international scene, we want to fix it. We want to find out what caused the problem, we want to find solutions, we want to make America better. If that sometimes leads to finger-pointing and negatives and all that -- well, that's how you improve, by fixing the bad. You don't improve by claiming everything is good in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.
In other words, you don't behave like a Conservative. You don't insist that your country can and will and never has done anything wrong. You don't blame Liberals or the media or illegal immigrants or communists or North Korea or anybody else for the wrong actions your country has taken. If you love your country, you don't do any of those things that shift blame, ignore problems, pretend everything is just peachy dandy okay keen.
If you love your country, you don't behave like a Conservative. Because it's pretty damn obvious to me, and should be to anyone who's paying attention, that Conservatives hate America. Conservatives are the true traitors to this great nation.
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