Civility & Other BS

Republicans took 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats in the 2010 election. That occurred because the majority of Americans were mad as hell - mad at the direction Obama was leading the country; mad at the way the left was thuggishly going about its business; and mad at the left's disregard of America's core principals. The majority of Americans voiced that anger in the lead-up to the 2010 election, and they were motivated by that anger to vote the Democrats to the most devastating defeat of either party in nearly a century.

Make no mistake, today's calls for "civility" from the left are nothing more than a call to curb the momentum of the right and to blunt their disagreement with the left's agenda. It is the last gasp of the left's recent effort to delegitimize conservatives with a blood libel - that the right's passioned disagreement with the left's agenda led to the mass murder in Arizona. And the only reason that effort failed was because virtually everyone on the right side of the aisle stood up and called "Bull S***!!!!!"

The right's problem over the past decade has been far too much "civility" whilst the left has daily used scurrilous ad hominem attacks to delegitimize the right. Obama, in just the past three months, has referred to conservatives as "hostage takers" and "enemies" of Hispanics. Rep. Clyburn has spent the past year calling the Tea Party movement "racist" and, most recently, described Sarah Palin as attractive but stupid. How's that for civility?

Where were the calls for civility when the far left was calling Bush a liar and comparing him to Hitler, or when they were calling Cheney the second coming of Satan? What about when the left were willing to do or say anything to undermine the war in Iraq and our nation's national security for their own political gain?

If the left wants civility, they should start with their own house. Knock off all the ad hominem attacks, apologize for the grotesque attempt to tar the right with a blood libel, and admit that their effort was undertaken without a shred of evidence. They should further come clean that the aim of this attack was not to improve civil discourse - charging your opponents with complicity in murder is not not conducive to that end - but was aimed at delegitimizing conservative speech. Until then:


And here is my prediction. Any new found "civility" on the left will not last more then nine days - which is when Obama will take the podium to give the State of the Union speech. You can rest assured he will make ad hominem attacks against the right. The guy is a child of the far left - and that's what the far left does. Intellectual honesty and a desire for robust debate on the issues are far from their strong suits. It's just that, up until a few days ago, their rhetorical paradigm usually worked.

Update: Don Surber expresses similar thoughts, as does I Own The World and Nice Deb.

Related: This on the intersection of left wing civility and logic (H/T Legal Insurrection)

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Palin: "Within Hours Of A Tragedy Unfolding, Journalists And Pundits Should Not Manufacture A Blood Libel"

Below is Sarah Palin's video commentary on the mass murder in Arizona. She strikes, I think, the right tone, both in mourning for the losses and responding to her critics and others who have seized on this event to delegitimize their opposition. The text of her speech is here.

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

I imagined that blood libel remark, wholly accurate, would shake the left wing hornet's nest. And yet again, I see it is Rep. Clyburn, the left's leading player of the race card and the man who wants to use this event to shut down right wing talk radio, who is among the first to respond. This from Rep. Clyburn:

"You know, Sarah Palin just can't seem to get it, on any front. I think she's an attractive person, she is articulate," Clyburn said on the Bill Press radio show. "But I think intellectually, she seems not to be able to understand what's going on here." . .

Clyburn said that Palin didn't grasp why such rhetoric was so troubling, regardless of the motivations of the alleged shooter of Giffords. The No. 3 House Democrat referenced the Civil Rights Era, and said that some of the shrill rhetoric in modern politics are reminiscent of that time in history.

"I have some experiences that maybe she does not have," he said. "When I see and hear things today that are reminiscent of that period of time, I am very, very concerned about it, because I know what it led to back then, and I know what it can lead to again."

Let's see, stunning arrogance - yep. Condecension to his political opponents - yep. Race card against all those who oppose the left rather than address the specific issue - yep. It's a Clyburn trifecta. What an absolute scumbag.

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Race Cards Flying While The DNC Plays Theatre

It is clear that the left thinks that conservatives are winning the national argument on Obamacare. Exhibit One is how the left is throwing race cards with wild abandon in an attempt to stop further debate and delegitimize those protesting Obamacare. On a related note, there is the DNC's incredibly hypocritical bit of political theatre - an offer to Michael Steele to sign a joint statement of "civility" - designed both to highlight a supposed lack of civility on the right and to set the right up for a beating on this issue in the future.

The picture at the top of the page is Jesse Jackson, Jr holding a flip-open cam-corder. Rep. Clyburn and others of the Congressional Black Caucus marched through the protests in an effort to solicit any sort of racial remarks. Jackson was one of two members of their little group recording every second of their march. And yet not a single one of the fifteen claimed racial epitaphs were recorded, nor was anything resembling an intentional spitting. Indeed, not a shred of evidence has been produced from any source supporting the claims.

That has not stopped veteran race card tosser Colbert King of the Washington Post, whose editorial, In the faces of Tea Party shouters, images of hate and history, is as scurrilous a piece as I've ever read. King tells us that "[t]he angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar," then draws direct parallels between the racist yahoos protesting against civil rights in the 50's and 60's to those protesting Obamacare today. His logic is impeccable, at least by progressive standards:

People attacking civil rights protestors in the 50's had angry white faces = racism.

People attacking civil rights protestors in the 60's had angry white faces = racism.

People protesting Obamacare at the Capitol had angry white faces = racism.

Besides his fatuous logic, King also demonstrates intermittent memory loss. King, fails to mention that the incidents in the 50's and 60's involved angry white DEMOCRATS. His memory returns when he mentions David Duke prominently as a Republican, but it fails him again when he speaks of association with the KKK. Sure, he remembers that Duke was a former member of the KKK, but he completely forgets that the only former member of the KKK in office today is a Democrat. He also forgets that George Wallace was a Democrat.

Eventually, Mr. King gives his assessment as to why there were all of the "angry white faces" at the Capitol Hill. Not surprisingly, Mr. King tells us that it had nothing to do with concern over the massive growth of government and spending our nation into penury:

Tea Party members, as with their forerunners who showed up at the University of Alabama and Central High School, behave as they do because they have been culturally conditioned to believe they are entitled to do whatever they want, and to whomever they want, because they are the "real Americans," while all who don't think or look like them are not.

And they are consequential. Without folks like them, there would be no Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Pat Buchanan. There would never have been a George Corley Wallace, the Alabama governor dubbed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter in a 2008 Slate article as "the godfather, avatar of a national uprising against the three G's of government, Godlessness, and gun control."

Hence, an explanation for the familiarity of faces: today's Tea Party adherents are George Wallace legacies.

They, like Wallace's followers, smolder with anger. They fear they are being driven from their rightful place in America.

Rightful place in America? Is King too blinded by his vile reverse racism to see that what the Tea Partiers fear is that America itself is being driven from its rightful place? That has nothing to do with racism - and indeed, it is hardly just whites who feel that way. But that is a debate that Mr. King clearly has no desire in which to engage. Indeed, it is one he wants to prevent from occurring. I look forward to the day when scurrilous race baiters like King are scourged and driven from the public square by public outcry. There is no reason King should not be treated precisely like Don Imus was for his racially charged remarks a few years ago. King should be out on his ass looking for a job more appropriate to his level of intellectual honesty and sophistication, perhaps as an unpaid diarist for Kos.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., another race baiter, has written similarly at Freep. You can read his piece here - and an exceptional reply from BlogProf here.

On a related note, the DNC made a highly publicized offer to the RNC chairman, Michael Steele, to sign a joint statement of "civility." Steele refused to do so - which was the right response. But he did so without comment, which was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Steele's should have responded with something akin to:

I can't sign your joint statement of civility because everything I have seen over the past several years leads me to believe that you are making your offer in bad faith. Now I could be wrong about that and, thus, let me make a proposal. In order for me to believe that you are making your offer in good faith, I need to see you first demonstrate it by denouncing the many acts of uncivil behavior you have ignored in the past few years, including specifically:

- The mob who vandalized GOP headquarters in North Carolina in 2004 and who left behind numerous obscenities scrawled across the walls.

- The drive by shooting of Bush Cheney headquarters in Knoxville, TN in 2004

- The seemingly omnipresent calls for the death of President Bush and comparisons of him to Hitler at virtually every left wing rally from 2004 to 2008.

- The matter of voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers. Even if the Obama Justice Dept. refuses to prosecute the case, you can and should denounce it.

- The beating of Kenneth Gladney by union goons who also called him a "nigger."

And on that topic, there is of course no place for racism or sexism in America today on either the right - nor the left. In order to restore civility, it is equally as important that you, in good faith, first denounce:

- Rev. Jerimiah Wright for his vile reverse racism.

- All of those on the left who have slimed Clarence Thomas because of his skin color, including most recently the authors and editors of The Root, who nominated Justice Thomas as one of the twenty "Black Folks We'd Like To Remove From Black History," along with a rogues gallery of cannibals and criminals. And, surprise, the editor in Chief of the Root is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who also needs to be denounced for creating a racial incident out of a police response to reports of a burglary at his house.

- All who make scurrilous attempts to delegitimize policy arguments by playing the race card, including Colbert King for his attempt to smear the entire Tea Party movement as racists in the Washington Post today.

- All attempts by the left to label speech they disagree with as "hate speech," despite the lack of any identifiable "hatred" in such speech. Indeed, I think you need to accompany this acknowledgment with an apology to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

- All efforts by the left to silence opposing speech, particularly on campuses across America.

- The horrendous sexism aimed at Sarah Palin that has been on-going since she appeared on the national scene two years ago.

- The ridiculous claims, repeated by the DNC, that the RNC was soliciting violence with their "fire Pelosi" campaign and a chart that showed Pelosi against a background of fire. Or likewise, Sarah Palin's chart showing gun targets over those jurisdictions that she thinks the right should target in the upcoming elections. This is incredibly disingenuous twisting.

To sum up, DNC, I will be more than happy to sign your joint statement of civility, if you will merely first play catch-up and prove your good faith by denouncing, individually, each of the uncivil acts above. My concern is, based on all of your prior acts, that you would apply an extreme double standard as to what constitutes civility on our relative parts - making your current request to sign a joint statement on "civility" not but the most hypocritical of ploys. But I look forward to be proven wrong. Indeed, can we set up a joint press conference for you to make your denunciations, after which we can hold a signing ceremony?

That is what Mr. Steele should have said. It is time to put these low rent, intellectually dishonest bastards on the defensive and keep them there.

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