Letters to the Editor
-
@czrpb00
As "because we don't trust government officials" seems to me to be all about consequences.
Well, I am not a consequentialist, certainly when it comes to political speech, including hate speech. I believe in the inherent value of the right to express opinions freely. In addition, however, I also share Glenn's well-placed mistrust in allowing the state to determine what should constitute a true/false or good/bad idea.
-
Cont.
I haven't included the most revealing and embarassing remark. I'll save it for the inevitable attack of the Harpy. I'm never getting in bed with it. I'll sleep alone and sleep better.
I think emblematic of your whole failure to understand the "right" is how you dismiss and characterize the Swift Boat Vets and POWS for Truth. Some of these men are Democrats or independents. One of the most vociferous had been chair of a vets group to elect a Dem governor in Virginia. Many may be Republicans, and the tiny amount of seed money that launched them came from a GOP operative (and where else where they supposed to go -- George Soros?), but they were not a GOP front group. They DESPISE John Kerry and most that he stands for where the military and expected bonds among brothers in service are concerned.
Read their web site, the articles they repost there, the explanation they themselves give for their motives. If you do not understand what motivated these 280 vets/POWs, you cannot grasp what an enormous mistake it was for the DNC to nominate John Kerry. I personally know a left-leaning lawyer who is a Vietnam Vet, and he would not have voted for John Kerry to run his municipal sewer system.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 7, 2004
Sure is. And where is the leftist leadership, on campus and off, that is loudly and publicly criticizing the disloyal activists in your midst? You know, the hue and cry I and others could point to when it is claimed that the academy is a cesspool of "moonbats" and such?
Genteel posting on this blog is fine, and I'm glad to see it, but where are the others of you and what have they been saying at their own counter-rallies,petitions,letters to student papers and that sort of thing?
There is a HUGE perception that literally anything critical of the U.S., of its President, and in support of enemies such as (but not limited to) Islamic radicals and terrorists, can and has been said, frequently, with little to no alarm or censure by academics. If that perception is wrong, I'd genuinely be interested to see the evidence for it.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 12, 2004
TB: regarding that "douche" Robert Novak. He straddles the line on being a member of the paleo-con right, and certainly hobnobs with paleo-cons whom I will unabashedly call unpatriotic. They agree with the left about the war in Iraq, and some on the left therefor embrace them, but they are really vile people.
To get a flavor for who these folks are, do a google on "Chronicles" magazine and the name of its editor, Thomas Fleming. (Or you can read what one National Review writer has to say of them here: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6818) Novak I *think* has been published by them, and certainly Pat Buchanan has. They are xenophobic, overtly Jew-hating and racist, "Southern Agrarianss" who belong to front groups for the White Citizens Council. They are almost all, also, extremely well-educated, many holding bona fide doctorates.
The reason I am so intimate with them is because this is the conservatism in which I was raised, by an academic. Daddy also opposes the war in Iraq, which he regards as a Zionist plot. My Dad is un-American, and prolly would not dispute that.
Far left and right meet up in the fever swamps of bigotry and conspiracy theories, and both are unpatriotic. But the right has taken effort to expunge the anti-Americans in their midst. Pat Buchanan and Joe Sobran have been so criticized by Buckley et al. that they no longer even try to publish in NR.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 12, 2004
Posted by: Mona
wmr: First, the right is not losing elections, the left is. Second, there is not a widespread sense among the population that the right is anti-American-- that is a problem for the left. Third, Ann Coulter is akin to James Carville in being a pitbull and firebrand given to gross rhetorical excess; they both amuse more than offend. Fourth, National Review fired Coulter for her excesses -- she wasn't seated next to Gerald Ford at the GOP convention. Fifth, that same magazine began cleaning house of Birchers and other denizens of the fever swamps -- including anti-Semites -- among the right in the 50s, a housecleaning that continues today. Sixth, no one expects the left to crusade against Al Franken, who is analogous to Rush Limbaugh; Franken is not your problem, and Rush is at least as funny as Al. Seventh, it was the right, including much of the blogosphere, who excoriated Trent Lott for his public nostalgia over a segregated South.
And to return to point #1, it is the left, including the academic left, that has the PR problem; some of us have been patiently explaining why that is, and what you might do to remedy it. It is hard to see what making "counter-demands" gets you, but in any event, the right has largely met them.
Oh, and repudiating vicious anti-Americanism is also, like, yanno, just the right thing to do. Geez.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 12, 2004
-
Some links
Posted by: Mona
andromeda writes: I doubt that Al Franken's rhetoric has much currency among Islamists - it's probably pretty much irrelevant to them - but the Chomsky/Fisk/Zinn faction has a lot of intellectual influence and their ideas are often adopted by Islamic radicals to justify terrorism.
Thank you, you elucidated my point better than I did. Franken, Limbaugh, Coulter...I don't take any of them very seriously, and moreover, a lot of conservatives strongly objected to Coulter's tarring all liberals with accusations of treason.
Among the more absurd consequences of that would be to have to denominate the Swift Vets primary spokesman, John O'Neill, a participant in treason since, as he informed Richard Nixon, he had voted for Humphrey and hailed from a family of Truman Democrats. Sidney Hook died a social democrat; there was not a treasonous bone in his body. Coulter cannot be taken seriously, and for her recklessness and lack of gravamen she was fired by National Review.
By contrast, Chomsky and others who are respected and feted as the Most Serious Thinkers of the Left, they are the people who show up on required readings in course syllabi; they are Michael Moore in polysyllables.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 12, 2004
Posted by: Mona
Steve Horwitz writes: I still don't think that many libertarians are "voting with the Falwells" but that's an empirical question. You might check out the November issue of *Reason* where they interviewed a large number of libertarians and asked who they were voting for (it's not online yet). A surprising number were voting for Kerry
No doubt. As a libertarian who has subscribed to and/or read Reason since 1981 or so, I was nonplussed at how pro-Kerry the new regime there is. But St. Virginia of Postrel joined me in going Bush, so there is hope. :)
But seriously, foreign policy is causing a schism among libertarians... God help me, I've started spending more time at NRO due to my war hawkishness. Maybe with the election over I should jump back over to Reason's Hit and Run to cure the Derbyshire cooties, before anti-sodomy laws start making sense to me.
Posted by: Mona | Dec 13, 2004 10:17:43 PM
http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/is_terrorism_im.html#c3058957
http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/on_patriotism.html#c3077488
http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/supporting_our_.html#c3012772
http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/experience_segr.html#c3035888
http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/what_hume_can_t.html#c3026350