Civility: Always Professional, Never Personal Or Profane
Hugh Hewitt points out a post done by Professor Glenn Reynolds about civil discourse in the blogosphere.
JEEZ: "Hamsher replied to Althouse's post about civility in public discourse by calling her an idiot and portraying her as a baboon."
It's like seventh grade, in some parts of the blogosphere. Related item here.
UPDATE: The BullMoose observes:
"Over and over again, the lefty bloggers contend that their major objective is not an ideological one but rather a partisan one. They claim that they want to win. Badly. The Moose begs to differ. It is not the goal of the left to prevail, but rather to purify."
Indeed. Otherwise they'd be more concerned with making friends than with, er, influencing people.
And this is certainly true: "All of this is grand news for the Republicans. One would think that the big political story would be the GOP holding onto power for dear life. Instead, the new narrative that is emerging is about the national Deaniac left telling Democratic hawks to beat it. The lefties' goal is a McGovernite party without the Scoop wing."
That'll work.
MORE: Roger Simon writes:
What interests me most in this is not so much the issue as the intensity of the rage directed at Lieberman. . . . Firedoglake has a right to feel frustrated. But if she wants to win, she should wise up.
Indeed.
This issue reminds me of a line from Ann Coulter's book "Slander." I believe it is the first sentence of the book, which is "Political debate in this country is insufferable." She is quite correct, but it comes more from the Left de-evolving into petulant little brats who, once beaten in a debate, resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks. Or worse yet, they outright attack opponents when those people are not there to defend themselves.
This is America, 2006. The Left has no clue, but they think they run the show, and the Republicans do run the show, but seemingly lack a spine.
What to do, what to do?
The Lefty bloggers out there--the DailyKos and his army of KosKiddies among them (thanks, but WE will take the Army of Davids over that farce anyday)--have dropped political debate into the gutter. Sinking to new lows is nothing new to Kos and his minions. From the "screw them" comment about the contractors in Iraq to the constant loony theories regarding the BDS that they suffer from, they have helped their party along those McGovernite lines.
John Kerry has finally located where he is on the political map, maybe, by embracing the antiwar platform he loved so much when he returned from Vietnam. (Y'all did know he served over there, right?) He is embracing the same point-of-view that the Democrats had when McGovern ran, and just like then, these Democrats will lose badly on the same notion. The war, they say as they click their tongues, has polarized the nation even further than before.
I disagree. And more to the point, I disagree with the so-called "polarization" argument. If you removed half of the issues that candidates debate about, and focused solely on what the country needed to address, then the lines would no longer be blurred. The map would not look blue, red, and purple as some election experts were embracing after 2004. They seem to say that this nation is slowly moving to the middle rather than the extreme sides of either party. Again, I disagree. The Republicans, when needed, will dig in and stand on an issue. At least the base will. Cases in point include Justice Sam Alito, Chief Justice Roberts, and potential nominee Harriet Miers.
The base jumped in on all three nominees. We fought tooth-and-nail for Alito and Roberts, and questioned--maybe a bit too harshly--Miers. But we did what the politicians in Washington were not willing to do, which was debate. They were looking for a horse trade, which is what Senator McCain and his Gang of 14 cronies did. It was literally a horse trade. We will give you these three candidates if you throw the other seven overboard; they are too extreme. Funny that as Judge Janice Rogers Brown was considered the most extreme and divisive out of the ten, and the Democrats agreed to let her have her vote. She passed by a decent margin, and is serving on the DC Court of Appeals now.
The polarization that political experts keep talking about comes in the form of how much further to the left the Democrats have swung. Angry, bitter, and out of power since 2000, they have done everything they can to obstruct or undermine the sitting president's agenda, and to sabotage the War on Terror. Does anyone recall the defense appropriations debate from last year. In December, the Senate took up the measure, and a number of amendments were tacked onto it. Two caught everyone's eye.
The first was John McCain's new torture law. A pitiful piece of pap on paper that had little bearing on the current war as this nation was abiding by the rules regarding interrogation and torture already. But Senator McCain took to the floor of the Senate to remind people of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. And he even made mention of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The intellectual dishonesty in his explanation for the need of new torture laws was beyond the pale. A minor incident in a prison abroad, and allegations of abuse at Gitmo formed the backbone of his legislation. It is called pandering, and Senator McCain loves to pander when the cameras are rolling.
The other piece that was to be attached, and should have been attached was the provision to drill in ANWR. EVERYONE raised a stink about that. The provision would have opened up ANWR, giving us yet another possibility for oil exploration, thereby cutting our dependence on foreign sources of oil, and no one wanted to deal with it. The drilling of ANWR is integral not just to our economy--in jobs created, and tax revenues rolling in--but it is also a national security issue that needed to be addressed.
The partisan divide is not unbridgable. It can be done. The mom-and-pop Democrats out there that voted for President Reagan in the 1980s are still out there. And there is a whole new generation of conservatism coming up through the ranks now. I ought to know. I am one of them at the ripe old age of nineteen. And on their side--the side with spite, venom, and invective, they are just getting more and more bratty in their rhetoric and attitude. They are nearly imperial in their actions and words. We cannot criticize people like John Murtha and John Kerry because they served in the military. We cannot take Cynthia McKinney to taks because she is black; the same goes for William Jefferson. Hillary is untouchable as a former First Lady, and a female to boot.
We said nothing about Duke Cunningham when he plead guilty to bribery charges. Well, we did, but it was along the lines of "Do the crime, do the time." The same went for Jack Abramoff when he was caught (and Harry Reid still is not forthcoming about his Abramoff money). Of course this also goes to intellectual honesty, which our side appears to have much more of than theirs does. They covered up for Bill Clinton while we kept exposing scandal after scandal. We have what appears to be a scandal now with the New York Times, and they keep trying to spin away from it. And the KosKiddies in the sandbox flow right along with Bill Keller's mantra.
They have driven debate to the point where it is virtually impossible to have a serious, honest, civil one any longer. We see it nightly on the talking heads shows, and on Sunday mornings. The Left lashes out at Republicans over their wounded pride, and hurt feelings. They play the victim card so the Republican will back off of them over their own guilty feelings.
But the silent majority is silent no longer. We have a voice, and we are confronting the Left. Come what may, we will maintain civility in political discourse while the Left continues to fuss and fume. The more they show their true colors, as they are doing now, the easier it will be to win in the future.
No one wants a nut in charge of the nation. And the Democrats are showing just how many nuts they have in the basket. Right now, it is overflowing.
Marcie
Hugh Hewitt points out a post done by Professor Glenn Reynolds about civil discourse in the blogosphere.
JEEZ: "Hamsher replied to Althouse's post about civility in public discourse by calling her an idiot and portraying her as a baboon."
It's like seventh grade, in some parts of the blogosphere. Related item here.
UPDATE: The BullMoose observes:
"Over and over again, the lefty bloggers contend that their major objective is not an ideological one but rather a partisan one. They claim that they want to win. Badly. The Moose begs to differ. It is not the goal of the left to prevail, but rather to purify."
Indeed. Otherwise they'd be more concerned with making friends than with, er, influencing people.
And this is certainly true: "All of this is grand news for the Republicans. One would think that the big political story would be the GOP holding onto power for dear life. Instead, the new narrative that is emerging is about the national Deaniac left telling Democratic hawks to beat it. The lefties' goal is a McGovernite party without the Scoop wing."
That'll work.
MORE: Roger Simon writes:
What interests me most in this is not so much the issue as the intensity of the rage directed at Lieberman. . . . Firedoglake has a right to feel frustrated. But if she wants to win, she should wise up.
Indeed.
This issue reminds me of a line from Ann Coulter's book "Slander." I believe it is the first sentence of the book, which is "Political debate in this country is insufferable." She is quite correct, but it comes more from the Left de-evolving into petulant little brats who, once beaten in a debate, resort to name calling and ad hominem attacks. Or worse yet, they outright attack opponents when those people are not there to defend themselves.
This is America, 2006. The Left has no clue, but they think they run the show, and the Republicans do run the show, but seemingly lack a spine.
What to do, what to do?
The Lefty bloggers out there--the DailyKos and his army of KosKiddies among them (thanks, but WE will take the Army of Davids over that farce anyday)--have dropped political debate into the gutter. Sinking to new lows is nothing new to Kos and his minions. From the "screw them" comment about the contractors in Iraq to the constant loony theories regarding the BDS that they suffer from, they have helped their party along those McGovernite lines.
John Kerry has finally located where he is on the political map, maybe, by embracing the antiwar platform he loved so much when he returned from Vietnam. (Y'all did know he served over there, right?) He is embracing the same point-of-view that the Democrats had when McGovern ran, and just like then, these Democrats will lose badly on the same notion. The war, they say as they click their tongues, has polarized the nation even further than before.
I disagree. And more to the point, I disagree with the so-called "polarization" argument. If you removed half of the issues that candidates debate about, and focused solely on what the country needed to address, then the lines would no longer be blurred. The map would not look blue, red, and purple as some election experts were embracing after 2004. They seem to say that this nation is slowly moving to the middle rather than the extreme sides of either party. Again, I disagree. The Republicans, when needed, will dig in and stand on an issue. At least the base will. Cases in point include Justice Sam Alito, Chief Justice Roberts, and potential nominee Harriet Miers.
The base jumped in on all three nominees. We fought tooth-and-nail for Alito and Roberts, and questioned--maybe a bit too harshly--Miers. But we did what the politicians in Washington were not willing to do, which was debate. They were looking for a horse trade, which is what Senator McCain and his Gang of 14 cronies did. It was literally a horse trade. We will give you these three candidates if you throw the other seven overboard; they are too extreme. Funny that as Judge Janice Rogers Brown was considered the most extreme and divisive out of the ten, and the Democrats agreed to let her have her vote. She passed by a decent margin, and is serving on the DC Court of Appeals now.
The polarization that political experts keep talking about comes in the form of how much further to the left the Democrats have swung. Angry, bitter, and out of power since 2000, they have done everything they can to obstruct or undermine the sitting president's agenda, and to sabotage the War on Terror. Does anyone recall the defense appropriations debate from last year. In December, the Senate took up the measure, and a number of amendments were tacked onto it. Two caught everyone's eye.
The first was John McCain's new torture law. A pitiful piece of pap on paper that had little bearing on the current war as this nation was abiding by the rules regarding interrogation and torture already. But Senator McCain took to the floor of the Senate to remind people of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. And he even made mention of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The intellectual dishonesty in his explanation for the need of new torture laws was beyond the pale. A minor incident in a prison abroad, and allegations of abuse at Gitmo formed the backbone of his legislation. It is called pandering, and Senator McCain loves to pander when the cameras are rolling.
The other piece that was to be attached, and should have been attached was the provision to drill in ANWR. EVERYONE raised a stink about that. The provision would have opened up ANWR, giving us yet another possibility for oil exploration, thereby cutting our dependence on foreign sources of oil, and no one wanted to deal with it. The drilling of ANWR is integral not just to our economy--in jobs created, and tax revenues rolling in--but it is also a national security issue that needed to be addressed.
The partisan divide is not unbridgable. It can be done. The mom-and-pop Democrats out there that voted for President Reagan in the 1980s are still out there. And there is a whole new generation of conservatism coming up through the ranks now. I ought to know. I am one of them at the ripe old age of nineteen. And on their side--the side with spite, venom, and invective, they are just getting more and more bratty in their rhetoric and attitude. They are nearly imperial in their actions and words. We cannot criticize people like John Murtha and John Kerry because they served in the military. We cannot take Cynthia McKinney to taks because she is black; the same goes for William Jefferson. Hillary is untouchable as a former First Lady, and a female to boot.
We said nothing about Duke Cunningham when he plead guilty to bribery charges. Well, we did, but it was along the lines of "Do the crime, do the time." The same went for Jack Abramoff when he was caught (and Harry Reid still is not forthcoming about his Abramoff money). Of course this also goes to intellectual honesty, which our side appears to have much more of than theirs does. They covered up for Bill Clinton while we kept exposing scandal after scandal. We have what appears to be a scandal now with the New York Times, and they keep trying to spin away from it. And the KosKiddies in the sandbox flow right along with Bill Keller's mantra.
They have driven debate to the point where it is virtually impossible to have a serious, honest, civil one any longer. We see it nightly on the talking heads shows, and on Sunday mornings. The Left lashes out at Republicans over their wounded pride, and hurt feelings. They play the victim card so the Republican will back off of them over their own guilty feelings.
But the silent majority is silent no longer. We have a voice, and we are confronting the Left. Come what may, we will maintain civility in political discourse while the Left continues to fuss and fume. The more they show their true colors, as they are doing now, the easier it will be to win in the future.
No one wants a nut in charge of the nation. And the Democrats are showing just how many nuts they have in the basket. Right now, it is overflowing.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 11:25 AM
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