The American Spectator

Ran / Si Vis Pacem| 1.18.11 @ 10:23PM

Huh? What are you aiming at?

Booger| 1.18.11 @ 10:26PM

Does this mean that Eric Cartman will be forced to disband "Fingerbang"?

Charles Martel| 1.19.11 @ 2:13PM

Yes. He'll have to go with the more intellectually honest "Fingerf***".

+++

JmsA| 1.18.11 @ 10:35PM

How quaint. Self-censure.

Clint| 1.18.11 @ 11:07PM

CNN Memo: From Now On Conservatives are allowed by Presidente For Life Obama & The Peoples Media to say, " We Got Em By The Short Hairs."

Pelligrino| 1.19.11 @ 9:01AM

It's a self-destructive, damaging notion.  It's riddled with flaws.  It cripples and lames.  It just bombs.

What exactly?  Menacingly cruel (vindictive?) word choice censorship.

m1sha| 1.19.11 @ 9:13AM

Sigh...the pendulum doth swing way to far left obviously approaching the absurd. By the by, wasn't it CNN that had the weekend political talk show "Crosshairs"? Can't remember since it was too stupid to watch.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 10:08AM

It is a little ridiculous. However, I don't think it's a sign of bad character.

This shooting is bound to affect how people talk about politics. This was a Congresswoman shot while talking to constituents; you'd have to lack a PULSE to think badly of people that would like there to be less gun-talk in politics.

In the end, we will of course continue the use of some gun-metaphors.

But I think presidential aspirants who think a gun-toting persona will win over suburban white moms -- women who do what? they drive their kids to supermarkets -- will find they're wrong.

Too Many Tims| 1.19.11 @ 10:25AM

Hate or Great? Please rate:

Get to the point!
Targeted tax cuts
Friendly Fire
cannon fodder
partisan attack
Political campaign
live shot
head shot
battleground state
money bomb

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 10:54AM

All fair points.

But if you're a politician, watch it.

Your gun-metaphor, as Sarah Palin will tell you, may backfire.

Al Adab| 1.19.11 @ 11:37AM

Buckley's TV show was Firing Line and wasn't one of the Sunday morning shows Crossfire or some such?

And wait doesn't football have "the shotgun, the bomb, the run and shoot" etc.?

Conservative Bob | 1.19.11 @ 11:46AM

Independently make whatever change in political discourse and language you choose.

AZ had precisely nothing what so ever to do with anyone’s tone, the words or symbols that they use or their party or ideological affiliation. AZ had to do with a man that has serious mental issues who had obsessed for years about this individual representative. It was political only in that the target of his deranged rage was a politician. Just as the shooter of John Lennon was not a music critic and his action had no relationship to the musical trends of the time.

Other than the now wide discredited attempt by the left to link this terrible tragedy to their opponents exactly why is "This shooting...bound to affect how people talk about politics."?

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 12:16PM

Bob --

Rhetoric is all about psychology and human motivation -- things that are extremely complicated to understand and impossible to simplify.

The fact is, that from now on when a "soccer mom" here's phrases like "second amendment remedies" and "don't retreat, reload" she's going to think about a Safeway parking lot in Tuscon Arizona. I can guarantee you that will change how we talk about politics. Right wing talk show hosts -- whose bread and butter is divisive rage -- may regret this, but I doubt the majority of Americans will.

But I think you make very good points, and I do think purging all rhetoric derived from war or guns from political talk is simply not going to happen.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 12:18PM

correction: hears not "here's" ... Can't understand why I make that error. I would consult Freud, but I guess he's on the right wing's current Most Dangerous List...

Nick| 1.19.11 @ 1:45PM

Marxist Reader,

Not the "Dangerous List," the Stupid List.
He always has been.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 2:11PM

Nick --

I don't really care what you think of Freud, actually. The idea that Freud is "stupid" is ludicrous.

That there must be some unconscious motivation for your assessment of Freud is certain.

Nick| 1.19.11 @ 2:16PM

Marxist Reader,

The only people who don't think the "Frude Dude" was stupid are bleeding hearts, like yourself.

Pete| 1.19.11 @ 12:56PM

Every time I hear Obama's divisive rhetoric, rhetoric that pits race against race and class against class, I think about a Safeway parking lot in Tuscon, Arizona. The positive take way from this tragedy is that more and more Americans will recognize and understand the hate coming from the White House and vote accordingly in two years.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 1:05PM

Can you give me an example of Obama's pitting of "race against race," or "class against class"?

Al Adab| 1.19.11 @ 1:15PM

What is redistribution if not class warfare? Same old Marxcist from each to each and the government decides which of us fits which category. Better to go with Lincoln, "that some become rich means other may become rich".

Charity under compulsion is no charity at all.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 1:24PM

Al Adab --

All taxation is redistributive. Any society engages in multiple forms of wealth distribution. Education is a classic example -- cited by Plato -- of wealth redistribution. It's not necessarily a Marxist idea.

I realize of course none of what I could say interests you. Nothing will prevent you from calling Obama a "marxist," no appeal of reason, no appeal to fact. Marxist, marxist, marxist, marxist.....ad infinitum.

Al Adab| 1.19.11 @ 2:26PM

Plato certainly qualifies as what today we might call a totalitarian elitist. He certainly thought the elites (himself) should order society.

As to your second paragraph, don't give me such short shriff. You and I had a couple pretty good conversations here as I recall. Bitterness ill becomes you. However, if a persons policies are Marxist... well if it quacks like a duck.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 4:57PM

Al Adab

I don't mean to be unpleasant, but the tag "marxist" is simply inaccurate. Obama is a left of center Democrat. Nothing he has proposed, said, or done locates him outside the mainstream of Democratic party politics. The Democratic party is supported by tens of millions of your fellow Americans -- including people with whom you are no doubt friends, including teachers, police officers, soldiers, businessmen.

Indeed, I would go further. There has NEVER been an American president who qualifies as radical. All left leaning presidents -- including Obama -- have been reformers.

Anyway, if you can give me any evidence of Obama's marxism, I'd be glad to consider it, but unless someone is advocating for a complete, radical reallocation of wealth -- the state control of the means of production -- then I think even the word "socialist" is pretty inaccurate, let alone the stronger connotations of marxist or communist.

Conservative Bob| 1.19.11 @ 1:19PM

You hope and pray "The fact is, that from now on when a "soccer mom" here's phrases like "second amendment remedies" and "don't retreat, reload" she's going to think about a Safeway parking lot in Tucson Arizona."

I do not accept your premise on Conservative radio, I do not hear rage. The left has been playing the angry white male card since before the Clinton days. Nice try though you keep pushing for any advantage you can for those who will listen.
What exactly is your point in the first paragraph; that you think I and other conservatives are too stupid to understand the “complexities” of rhetoric, or is this a deflection as if to say it is too early to tell yet if there is a connection?

Verified national polling on Nov. 2, 2010 clearly indicated that “soccer moms” along with a majority of the rest of the electorate are more concerned about the out of control federal government and the over reach of its fiscal and constitutional limits.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 1:31PM

Bob --

Hold on there, partner. I never said you or anyone else was too stupid to understand anything.

I just wanted to be sure the conversation included acknowledgment of the fact that rhetoric trades in complicated truths about human motivation.

The fact that people will be influenced in a certain way is not necessarily something anyone plans and hopes for.

I know you think I'm evil, I know you think I "hope for" terrible shootings like this so I can blame them on talk radio show hosts. I realize it's pointless to try to convince you otherwise.

But your last point -- that the "soccer moms" voted Republican on Nov 2 -- may be true. But if you think after this shooting that goading them with promises of "second amendment remedies" is going to lure them to your cause, I think you're going to find you're wrong.

Conservative Bob| 1.19.11 @ 2:45PM

I took that first paragraph as condescending and dismissive, speaks to your point on rhetoric rather well actually.

It is becoming conditioned response. My beliefs (conservative, limited constitutional gov) are daily vilified. I am an uncaring, racist, homophobic, bigoted xenophobe if I do not accept in mass the conventional wisdom of the left.
I am well read and hold degrees in history and economics , but am told either overtly or through thinly veiled reference that I am stupid because of the beliefs I hold and because I do not welcome ever increasing intrusion of enlightened government into my life.
So now when I see someone telling me how complex something is or that I just don’t understand the nuance I categorize it as yet another in a long line of dismissive replies.

We are severely divided in this country; there is little middle ground on many of the most important questions we are facing. The rhetoric will remain heated because the division is so deep and there is really no rational middle point on these foundational issues both political and cultural. I honestly don’t think those on the left understand how far they have pushed, how relentlessly has been their attacks, on peoples core beliefs and principles.

Pardon me if I decide to push back in self defense.

Liberal Reader| 1.19.11 @ 2:59PM

Bob --

I think if you asked ANY sober, rational, inquisitive person who scans the internet or exposes his woeful self to any reaches of the blabosphere you would meet a person who believes some large segment of the population regularly vilifies, insults, hates, or rebukes him -- all for beliefs he holds because he thinks they're for the public good!

I assure I feel this way as a tax-and-spend liberal. (I don't make any bones about it.)

But this is largely a result -- I would argue -- of marketing decisions made by those who profit from the blabosphere the most. Imagine a day in which Olbermann had to go on television and say that Bush -- all told -- had had a fine week; things were about as good as anyone could hope for, and anyway we're all lucky to live in such a great country. Well -- this is not what the sponsors pay for, and you can be damn sure it's not what Rush Limbaugh's sponsors pay for either.

Don't get me wrong: I LIKE political debate. That's why I come to this site and a few other conservative sites. But I don't think we should ignore how convenient it is for a very well paid few that there is so much acrimony and distrust in this county -- an unnecessary and, yes, I think even dangerous amount.

Nick| 1.19.11 @ 1:34PM

I love it when liberals get all hot and bothered over language. What's a liberal to do?

It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry was self-censoring himself because he was dating an American Indian. He stopped himself from using phrases like "Indian giver."

Or, the one where Kramer wouldn't wear the stupid AIDS ribbon, and a bunch of homos beat him up for it.

Those episodes nicely reflect the mentality of the left.