A comic posed with a gruesome bloody facsimile of President Trump's head... In a tearful news conference [Kathy Griffin] said of the president, "He broke me." She was roundly mocked for this. Oh, the big bad president's supporters were mean to you after you held up his bloody effigy. But she was exactly right. He did break her. He robbed her of her sense of restraint and limits, of her judgment. He broke her, but not in the way she thinks, and he is breaking more than her.Of course, this kind of lecturing is not going to work, but I found the florid prose interesting, especially the metaphor of dirtiness: These things are low and grubby, and people are slobs. She sounds snobby: The good people, the tone setters, are not showing the little people the right way to act.
We have been seeing a generation of media figures cratering under the historical pressure of Donald Trump. He really is powerful. They're losing their heads. Now would be a good time to regain them. They have been making the whole political scene lower, grubbier. They are showing the young what otherwise estimable adults do under pressure, which is lose their equilibrium, their knowledge of themselves as public figures, as therefore examples -- tone setters. They're paid a lot of money and have famous faces and get the best seat, and the big thing they're supposed to do in return is not be a slob. Not make it worse....
And then you get lowly slobs like Hodgkinson idiotically acting on the grubby ideas he's been hearing from the elite. But it would be "fatuous," Noonan instructs us, to think that anyone but the shooter is responsible for the shooting.
पोस्ट्स
२२५ टिप्पण्या:
225 पैकी 1 – 200 नवीन› नवीनतम»I blame the media for ALL of the hate. THEY hate Trump, and they do not cover it up....is there any wonder the hate is overflowing in America?? Funny thing is, the same people who hate Trump, loved him a few years ago.
She's not talking about look-up-my-dress newsbabes but serious men.
You expect low and grubby from newsbabes.
Domitian, the Proud Sexy Gay Commenter says...
The political scene now has made it tougher to be Gay...
Like, I'm not interested in politics, right? I'd rather talk about Interior Decoration any day of the week. But now, you meet some guy who you want to suck your cock, and inevitably he starts going on about how evil Trump and the Republicans are...
Look: I don't want Trump to suck my cock. But that's about as far as I want to talk about it, okay...?
I took to my condo an educated British guy -- I love the accent! -- and he started sucking my Horse Cock -- and sucking it very well, too. But then he stops sucking, and starts going on about how evil the Right is. Dude: shut up and keep sucking my Cock, okay? And he's British, he's not even American...
So, after his diatribe, he resumes sucking my Cock, but his attitude has changed, and now his Cock-Sucking is perfunctory -- Passive-Aggressive Cock-Sucking is the worst...!
So I finally shoot my load, and after he swallows he starts talking about Trump again! The guy acts like he's practically a Lesbian...!
I finally get him out of the condo and take a shower. You know, this is why I like the Brown and Hot types who barely spoke English -- the only language needed to be understood is The Language Of The Cock...
Bye, everyone! Suck suck!
I am Laslo.
Peggy trying' to distance herself yet again from the contents of her cesspool as it get pumped out yet again for overflowing.
The early 1980s is calling and they want their Presidential speechwriter back.
It's not Trump the media hates as much as the people that voted for him.
Trump is just a convenient figurehead.
She sounds snobby
Well, she is. I read this piece a couple of days ago and had my normal reaction to a Noonan article: "Peggy you are hopelessly elitist."
Peggy is right up there with Thomas Friedman and EJ Dionne on my list of people with whom I don't want to drink a beer.
Are you suggesting that Hodgkinson didn't have a subtle understanding of Shakespeare and his ambiguities?
The more dignified the man, the funnier the banana peel.
Most useless female writer is still Kathryn Lopez.
Once Bret Stephens gets canned at the NYT, his token conservative replacement is at the ready.
"They're losing their heads."
Well placed cliche, post Griffin stunt.
"It's not Trump the media hates as much as the people that voted for him."
^^^^^ This ^^^^
The late-night comedians and SNL who focus on Trump so much are pretty lazy artists, considering all the comedic material in the world. They basically trigger Pavlovian responses of the audience who are conditioned to laugh at any Trump joke. You have to go pretty far to offend them with one, like Kathy Griffin.
But what the anti-Trumpers are accomplishing is to distract attention from what Trump is doing and trying to do. Unfortunately Trump is an effective accomplish in this effort.
John Wick 2 broke an honor among thugs unwritten code, which probably forbodes a fall into the noir genre for John Wick 3.
Same as US politics.
The trouble with noir is that the body count isn't big enough.
The Assassination attempt on Representative Scalise, is laid at the feet of the media. (Proof? Watching NBC 7 am Sunday morning national news, about 20 seconds on the call for civility. Zero talk about the assassination attempt itself)
Noonan is right. The establishment leftist, political and media, have tipped over into the insane, and, delusional. Chuck Todd just needs a real tin foil hat, and no one would question it.
We can't have it both ways. We can't say in the suicide thread that words don't matter, that they can't rise to the level of criminal responsibilty, and then come over here and denounce similar words in the political sphere. We can't say words only matter if people have power over us and then get upset about the words of dead ISIS fighters on YouTube or the words in the Koran that compel followers to kill.
Are these magic videos? Is the Koran a magic book? How else can they wield power over those with the ability to choose for themselves?
We can't claim the totality of free will for a man with diminished capacity to kill himself no matter what others do in one thread, and simultaneously blame our politicians and the media for creating a "climate of hate" that's "going to get someone killed" by inciting people with the same diminished capacity to kill others in the next thread over.
Even Noonan wants to have it both ways. People are fully responsible for their own actions, but we shouldn't encourage them. Why? If A, then B is irrelevant. If we divorce our rhetoric from what's happening in the public square, if we grant ourselves immunity, then we should not worry about its impact on others. And if we worry about the impact, we should not be so eager to grant ourselves a pass when someone acts on them.
So what's it going to be, Althouse commenters? What's it going to be?
Are we going to shut our yaps about Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, BLM, ISIS, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Inga, Chuck, and Once because they hold no power over us? Or are we going to acknowledge that words can drive some people to kill - even themselves - and we bear full and legal responsibility for what we say?
Kevin, are you proposing that government should decide what is acceptable speech? Or are you going to be the arbiter of acceptable speech?
Kevin- I will admit that words spoken or written by some people sometimes makes me think about how the world might be a better place if the person who spoke or wrote the words was kaput. And right now, I am thinking that about Kevin heh.
Agency, Kevin. Ultimately the decision to act or not to act rests with you.
Kevin, are you proposing that government should decide what is acceptable speech? Or are you going to be the arbiter of acceptable speech?
No, I'm saying the same people who argued yesterday that a person's words don't carry any legal weight in one thread can't then come over here and claim that a "culture of hate" is being formed that causes people to kill.
Either words matter or they don't. For some people, they matter when they want them to and they don't matter when they don't.
We can't have it both ways. Not if we are serious people.
Agency, Kevin. Ultimately the decision to act or not to act rests with you.
So why are we upset about Kathy Griffin, or Rachel Maddow, or Rush Limbaugh? Why are we upset about Inga, or Chuck or Fen?
If the decision to act is ours, and ours alone, why are we out there policing speech? Why are we doing it here?
Noonan is right. The establishment leftist, political and media, have tipped over into the insane, and, delusional. Chuck Todd just needs a real tin foil hat, and no one would question it.
Oh, and this started with Trump?! Have you people lost your collective minds. What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama? Have you forgotten that our current president was a major figure in the birther movement? Or that Ted Nugent (who Trump invited on stage at campaign rallies and invited to the White House) directly threatened both Obama and Hillary with assassination. Heck even on this blog I had to call out a commenter who "joked" about assassinating Obama (don't bother to look for the thread, Althouse wisely deleted it after I pointed out the inappropriateness of it).
Oh and by the way, someone in one of the Julius Caeser threads imagined the outrage if Obama was cast as Caeser. Well, suck on this
You accuse the left of creating an Orwellian state, well you are doing it in spades. All the nastiness about Obama (and of course the treatment of Bill Clinton is ancient history) down the memory hole.
Another column from Louisa May Noonan.
Elizabeth Warren regularly beats her war drum by claiming that the system is rigged. Is there any doubt that kind of rhetoric incites people to resent and hate others?
Peggy says: "Stephen Colbert, well known as a good man, a gentleman,"
Peggy is not living in the same reality as me; what reality is she living in?
So Ann, do you want to have the "New Tone" or not? If you think it is just "Civility Bullsh*t," then say so. I have personally been practicing more restraint on your blog over the last week. Let us know which way you want to go.
It's unrealistic to think that if you take away the foundation, the roof is going to stay where it is.
If Hodgkinson, a building inspector, can't understand that, what can we expect from journalists?
Domitian, the Proud Sexy Gay Commenter says...
Words can sometimes get someone to Suck Your Cock.
Sometimes words can't get someone to Suck Your Cock.
Sometimes guys say they will Suck Your Cock, but never do.
Sometimes guys say they will Never Suck a Cock, but they end up doing it, just don't tell anyone, okay?.
This is why I like the Brown and Hot types who barely speak English.
They just speak Cock.
Bye, everyone! Suck suck!
I am Laslo.
It's a low bar, but I prefer Noonan to Bruni. Both columns were predigested gruel, but, here and there, Noonan can turn a phrase......The media do seem to hate Trump more than the average Republican, but maybe my memory's playing tricks. People have a tendency to remember the past as some kind of golden age when the reality was that it sucked even worse. I think the media might have hated Nixon with even greater intensity than they do Trump and certainly they hated him for a far longer time. What sets Trump hate apart from Nixon hate is the amount of ridicule and contempt it contains. The media had some respect for Nixon's intelligence and political skills but think Trump is stupid, ignorant, and bigoted. They feel that it is their sacred mission to detail how stupid, ignorant and bigoted he is. With Nixon, they did it with arched eyebrows,but nowadays it's so much more blatant.
What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama? Have you forgotten that our current president was a major figure in the birther movement?
Obama did most of that all by himself as he watched the American voters strip the Democrat Party of a thousand elective offices while he tried to rule. He wound up with "a phone and a pen" because he had nothing left.
You conveniently forget 8 years of Bush hate that was quite similar to the stuff going on now.
The "birther thing" got traction only because Obama had the thinnest resume of any president and his history is still secret in many areas. What were his college grades ? Hmmm?
Obama did most of that all by himself as he watched the American voters strip the Democrat Party of a thousand elective offices while he tried to rule. He wound up with "a phone and a pen" because he had nothing left.
You conveniently forget 8 years of Bush hate that was quite similar to the stuff going on now.
The "birther thing" got traction only because Obama had the thinnest resume of any president and his history is still secret in many areas. What were his college grades ? Hmmm?
Every thing you point out is doubly true of Trump.
Commenter Kevin made the most relevant point in this thread. Thank you for raising the level of discussion here.
Elizabeth Warren regularly beats her war drum by claiming that the system is rigged.
And "the system is rigged" was not the theme of the Trump campaign?
What reality are you people living in?
"I think the media might have hated Nixon with even greater intensity than they do Trump "
Yes and they managed to destroy him but I don't think they will be able to do that with Trump. Americans are wiser now. They see the dishonesty.
I'm reading Buchanan's new book about Nixon. It's very interesting.
Buchanan was right about a.lot of stuff that was ridiculed.
"It's not Trump the media hates as much as the people that voted for him."
E.g., via commenter Angel-Dyne yesterday:
May I suggest that we let Mr. Trump's supporters (or at least those inside the beltway) remain in the country without status--that we put them to work cleaning our hotel rooms, picking our vegetables & doing our domestic work, for slave wages & no benefits? And maybe we can prosecute them for "voter fraud", for turning our politics into a less honest version of pro wrestling?
"Are we going to shut our yaps about Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, BLM, ISIS, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Inga, Chuck, and Once because they hold no power over us? Or are we going to acknowledge that words can drive some people to kill - even themselves - and we bear full and legal responsibility for what we say?"
Kevin is right, words do matter. If my words don't matter, why do they provoke so many of you to repond so strongly? But, it's not only the words of people who have an opposing philosophy or view point that matter, all words matter. Your words and mine matter and contribute to the disharmony in our country and the world and yes, this blog. Having said that we are all just human, we rise to anger when baited, when insulted, when pushed, etc. Noonen is wrong in thinking it's fatuous to blame only the perpetrator for his deeds. Everything that occurs in the world affects us, words people write and say colors our thinking. Not one of us is such an original thinker that we aren't affected by others opinions and deeds. We are a society, we don't live free from others words.
It's going to be extremely difficult controlling our own responses and our own words when everyone seems to be in high dudgeon 24/7. I see though that we do need to draw back, to modify our more virulent words, our high emotions, our strong desire to make things right again. Nothing is ever completely right as we have such varying thoughts as to what is right and wrong. Maybe there is some middle ground that both sides can feel comforatable with.
"Every thing you point out is doubly true of Trump."
Nonsense and that is why you people get no traction. The lies are too obvious these days.
Everybody knows everything about Trump. He has been a media figure for decades.
"why are we out there policing speech? Why are we doing it here?"
Disagreeing with people is "policing" their speech? Who knew?
Noonan's expiration date is long since past. She is indeed a snob, Ann, though she tries, unsuccessfully, to hide it with faux common man words like "slob." Worst of all, her insights are anything but. They're outsights ... obversations so obvious as to be insulting. And wrong. She was wrong about Obama, wrong about Trump, she's wrong about everything. But in the bubble where she resides, it all seems wise, clever, and right.
Elizabeth Warren regularly beats her war drum by claiming that the system is rigged. Is there any doubt that kind of rhetoric incites people to resent and hate others?
Some people argue it does. I think it does.
Other people argue that everyone has free will, and thus what Elizabeth Warren says has no bearing on whether they decide to hate or not. And if free will cannot be corrupted by the utterings of Warren, we shouldn't worry about anything she says, let alone spend time on this forum denouncing it.
She sounds snobby: The good people, the tone setters, are not showing the little people the right way to act.
She's simply pointing out that many of these adults are short on dignity, short on maturity.
Yes, men in shorts tag time.
Speaking of dignity why do you allow that obscene creep Laslo to post here?
He needs to go the way of that old crackhead guy.
Disagreeing with people is "policing" their speech? Who knew?
You must have been absent the day people spent post after post demanding Inga "renounce violence", for just one example. This forum goes way beyond "I think" into "You can't possibly think" and "You're wrong if you think" on a continuous basis.
Watching Chuck Todd. He continues to pretend to be non-partisan while his complete bias is screaming at me. Democrat with a weekly propaganda show.
Speaking of dignity why do you allow that obscene creep Laslo to post here?
Laslo is the Althouse Fire Department. Whenever a thread becomes too hot, Laslo jumps in with something completely off-base to move it from sublime to the ridiculous.
Or from the ridiculous to the sublime, depending on your point of view.
Laslo is a genius. Althouse Blog lucky to have him.
Kevin said...
"I'm saying the same people who argued yesterday that a person's words don't carry any legal weight in one thread can't then come over here and claim that a "culture of hate" is being formed that causes people to kill.
Either words matter or they don't. For some people, they matter when they want them to and they don't matter when they don't.
We can't have it both ways. Not if we are serious people."
Good point.
But you're making an all-or-nothing argument. There's a big middle between what's acceptable behavior and what should get you thrown in jail. Most things in life fall in the middle -- the denial of that middle is T.H. White's famous definition of totalitarianism.
Encouraging suicide is ugly and contemptible -- but I don't think we should throw people in jail for it.
Similarly, screaming that every Republican is a white supremacist who is literally worse than Hitler is ugly and contemptible -- but I don't think we should throw people in jail for it.
There's nothing contradictory or hypocritical about condemning arguments or behavior without calling for jail time.
"You must have been absent the day people spent post after post demanding Inga "renounce violence", for just one example."
Yes, I think I was. I generally avoid Inga-heavy threads, as they tend to degenerate quickly. Asking someone to "renounce violence" is "policing" them?
"This forum goes way beyond "I think" into "You can't possibly think" and "You're wrong if you think" on a continuous basis."
I don't see anything "policing" about telling other people they are wrong. Maybe we're using the word differently. I see periodic calls for this or that person to be banned, which is stupid and counterproductive (as are comments telling other commenters not to respond to the commenter).
"They're losing their heads." Not at all. The left fights. Progs have only adjusted their strategy to the new environment, exploiting the opportunity of the Trump clown show, to beat the right by delegitimizing Trump. They'll do anything. Sure, for the time being there may be a few sensitive older midwestern women who normally vote Dem, like Althouse, and a few nice GOP-leaning women like Noonan who object to the all-out war, and therefore in the short run the strategy may not succeed electorally, but of course progs don't care. They are scorching the earth.
Democrats need to embrace and rigorously practice the "New Civility" for two reasons--
1) Democrats will never beat Trump in being uncivil. Trump thrives in battling it out in the dirty muck.
2) Trump will never get out of the gutter. It is who he is and it is what propelled him to the top.
Having Trump on the uncivil side and everyone else choosing the "The Civility" further isolates Congressional Republicans from Trump. This is clear if you are watching the Sunday political shows.
We can't have it both ways. We can't say in the suicide thread that words don't matter, that they can't rise to the level of criminal responsibilty, and then come over here and denounce similar words in the political sphere.
False analogy. Straw man. No one is saying journalists are criminally responsible for the shooting. Virtually everyone acknowledged Michelle Carter's immorality and unethical behavior even if they disagree about whether she is criminally responsible. So in fact there is no inconsistency here. The MSM have blood on their hands--morally, not criminally.
An elite just noticed that her elitism has no clothes. In response, she attempts to gather up some of the discarded imaginary bits of cloth and put together an acceptable outfit to be seen in.
Everybody knows everything about Trump. He has been a media figure for decades.
Everybody recognizes Trump, but we know very little of substance about him. He has not released his tax returns (and the excuse that they are under audit doesn't fly as he has many years of tax returns that are not under audit). What we know about his business dealings and associates is only what he chooses to share. His myriad of companies are all LLCs, which means he answers only to himself (no board of directors or shareholders) and his finances are completely private.
To pretend we know "everything" about Trump is laughable in the extreme. Even his latest financial statement says he is worth a little over a billion dollars, when he has claimed he is worth ten times that.
But you're making an all-or-nothing argument. There's a big middle between what's acceptable behavior and what should get you thrown in jail.
Totally agree. I'm not making the all-or-nothing argument. I'm calling out those who are. Specifically, I'm arguing against those who say it's only deeds and never words which cause harm.
Not all harm is jail-worthy. Most is not. But some is. And not all people have free will in all situations. Most do. Many do not.
You can draw your own bright lines at "free will" and "deeds, not words". But those are the all-or-nothing arguments. And you certainly can't draw those lines in one area and then condemn the outrageous words of your political opponents as anything other than hot air.
"No, I'm saying the same people who argued yesterday that a person's words don't carry any legal weight in one thread can't then come over here and claim that a "culture of hate" is being formed that causes people to kill."
Apparently the right is as worried about the culture of hate they see as coming from the left as the left is as coming from the right. It started with Trump's campaign speeches, the words he spoke raised red flags in the left that indicated to us that he may very well be setting up a culture of hate against illegal immigrants, Muslims, the Press. The right sees our emotional responses to what we perceive to be hateful dangerous speech by Trump and his supporters as now being a culture of hate directed toward them for their support of him and his words. Both sides are right, we do seem to hate each other if we're being truthful. How can we proceed from here?
Virtually everyone acknowledged Michelle Carter's immorality and unethical behavior even if they disagree about whether she is criminally responsible.
Not a strawman. If you think she shouldn't be prosecuted, I accept your judgement. Some argued, however, that she COULDN'T be prosecuted because she only talked to him.
To wit: As I said in the other thread, words compel action only in the world of magic.
Absent magic, we only hold people responsible for encouraging illegal action if they are in a position of authority.
If this is true, we should all shut up about the "climate of hate" being generated by media people who are certainly not in a position of authority over us.
s," the words he spoke raised red flags in the left that indicated to us that he may very well be setting up a culture of hate"
That's on you, luv. Because the rest of heard a message of a return to the rule of law and common sense.(TY Mock).
What the rest of us get from the rage of the left is an unreasoning response to the loss of your political monopoly. Especially the monopoly that Obama tried to establish. You're not hated. Most of us liberals are amused by your ignorance.
Noonan writes floridly and speaks even more so. She keeps trying to be some kind of wise trail guide in politics, like a camp counselor of poli-sci students.
@Freder Frederson - Of the many things to wonder about Trump, you focus on his tax returns? Really? What treasure do you expect to find there? If they contain anything substantive or damaging, the Federal Colander would have already leaked it. No person who is a Trump supporter will be moved to detest him based on the contents of his 1040. No person who is a Trump hater will be moved to love him based on the contents of his 1040.
It started with Trump's campaign speeches, the words he spoke raised red flags in the left that indicated to us that he may very well be setting up a culture of hate against illegal immigrants, Muslims, the Press.
Trump only got traction because for the last 8 years the words spoken by the left raised flags in the right that a culture of hate was being set up against white people, men, straights, gun owners, Christians, climate change "deniers", and people concerned about Sharia law.
Both sides are right, we do seem to hate each other if we're being truthful. How can we proceed from here?
We might start with the premise that "by any means necessary" includes not only killing for a cause, but the notion that it's OK if Civil War destroys and divides the country so long as we don't have to deal with "those people" anymore. It's like marriage counseling. Before we try to save the union, it has to become clear to both sides its worth saving.
"Because the rest of heard a message of a return to the rule of law and common sense."
As I clearly said in my comment, we heard two distinctly different things. Should the goal be to continue growing the divide, or to shrink it? What would be more beneficial to America? Not a difficult answer but an almost impossible task.
The solution is to go to ascii emoticons.
Culture of :-(
"They are showing the young what otherwise estimable adults do under pressure, which is lose their equilibrium, their knowledge of themselves as public figures, as therefore examples -- tone setters. They're paid a lot of money and have famous faces and get the best seat, and the big thing they're supposed to do in return is not be a slob. Not make it worse...."
The problem with "conservatives" like Noonan is that they long ago gave up any substance and coherence to worship at the graven idols of form and "tone". (And they're not even consistent in that. The crassest speech and behavior from liberals and the "correct" sort of conservative doesn't bother them in the slightest.)
Do form and tone matter? Yes, but only when they are outward markers of components of personal character that have real value. Stephen Colbert is a "gentleman"?!?! What does she even mean by that? He didn't gild the molding in his drawing room?
If they are aren't outward signs of inner virtues, then "form" and "tone" are nothing but vulgar shibboleths. "My neat crisp bow tie is not an outward marker of inner virtues, it is virtue itself", says the cuck. "I conserve nothing and go along to get along with every inanity and insanity the left demands we grovel before, but with the best of 'tone'." (Note to all the fainting-couch utilisers: if you have to keep telling everyone how "classy" you are, you are not "classy", you are the most vulgar kind of vulgar.)
Noonan is a vulgar writer and always has been, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that kind of vulgarity, but geez, lady, there is something wrong with prissy vulgarians lamenting that somebody else's vulgarity is ruining their precious, sterile, empty "tone" ranch.
"How can we proceed from here?"
It would first require that people stop lying, but politics is nothing if not high profile open lying. Escape it, look at people as fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Leave their politics out of it the same way you would ignore their preference for spicy food or gay sex - things you may not share, or even understanding, but which also need not get between you.
At this point, that seems impossible, but we do often do it for holiday family get togethers. We avoid the subject, which allows us to avoid the lies we engage in to stoke our own eternal fires. In the end it amounts to little more than self-inflicted misery and destruction of our own lives. The people who anger us so much will not change to the better from our antagonism, but maybe they will from much less of it. Even if not, we will be happier to have avoided the wasted battle that can have no resolution. You get to vote, and show your truth by example of your works and actions. That's all you do that matters much. Your angry speech and writing will always be matched, becuase it creates the opposing response 100% of the time. Result: a miserable tie at the end of a self-destroying string of you and me at our worst.
Bring back LOL for "lots of love."
Sorry about your father LOL
Is she claiming that "media figures" are "estimable adults"?
They're entertainers. Jesters, singers, poets, etc.
What treasure do you expect to find there?
The most interesting thing would be foreign partners in his companies. That could be very damaging, especially if it turns out he has Russian partners (which he has denied).
"Trump only got traction because for the last 8 years the words spoken by the left raised flags in the right that a culture of hate was being set up against white people, men, straights, gun owners, Christians, climate change "deniers", and people concerned about Sharia law."
And that challenges us on the left to not dismiss this as nonsense. I'm trying for the sake of peace and harmony and the good of the country to understand the concerns raised on the right as legitimate and worthy of consideration. The old adage "walk a mile in my shoes" is going to be tough to put into action, but it seems that we must.
Inga said: The right sees our emotional responses to what we perceive to be hateful dangerous speech by Trump and his supporters as now being a culture of hate directed toward them for their support of him and his words.
As long as you define "hate speech" as any speech with which you disagree your side will perceive a culture of hate.
Twenty years ago I could politely discuss politics with my most liberal friend and have an enjoyable evening. We often agreed to disagree on topics like school discipline, taxpayer funding for NPR and abortion. Ideas were exchanged and positions were carefully argued. Those conversations are no longer possible. My liberal friend now yells, calls me a fascist and later apologizes for his incivility. But useful discussion is no longer possible. His tone has changed from respectful to condescending.
I wonder what would have happened back in 2000 if we'd had twitter and social media like we do today?
Oh, and this started with Trump?! Have you people lost your collective minds. What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama?
Oh, and this started with Obama?!
"As long as you define "hate speech" as any speech with which you disagree your side will perceive a culture of hate."
That's is also true of your side. I actually don't define it as "hate speech" in the legal sense, but more hateful speech in the moral sense.
Vigorously attack ideas, gently embrace opponents, warmly embrace allies.
Should the goal be to continue growing the divide, or to shrink it? What would be more beneficial to America? Not a difficult answer but an almost impossible task.
I don't think we're at that question yet. In fact, I think we're from it. I live in a blue state. I hear things all the time like, "the world is changing, and people are just going to have to accept that".
That's a very interesting framing. On one hand, it's a tautology. On the other, the speaker clearly has certain changes which he favors and people are "going to have to accept", and others he doesn't favor and would never accept. So in that sentence, he not only lays out his personal worldview but keeps it hidden to even himself.
How do you engage, other than to shock him out of his righteousness? If he gets to have his own worldview by any means necessary, should not the Texas cattle rancher or unemployed auto worker? Is that not a call for anything but violence?
I think the first step in any of this is not to simply call out where we agree and disagree. Disagreement is fine, healthy, part of the learning process. What we really need to call out is the dogma with which we hold the disagreements in our minds. If we have no empathy for other opinions and other solutions, how far are we willing to go to get what we want? And if we're not willing to kill for our ideas, perhaps we should dial down the rhetoric and start thinking about a wider range of acceptable solutions.
"What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama?"
True!
"useful discussion is no longer possible" That's right: lib partner will start yelling within 2 minutes, regardless of subject or context.
I actually don't define it as "hate speech" in the legal sense, but more hateful speech in the moral sense.
Neither side should take solace in the idea that the angry rhetoric of the other is "more hateful". Gradations of hate can lead to nothing but a full nuclear exchange.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled tu quoque-fest.
"What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama?"
True!
What about eight years of trying to delegitimize George "selected, not elected" Bush?
Also true!
How far back should we go? Thousands of years like the Jews and Palestinians?
"What about eight years of trying to delegitimize George "selected, not elected" Bush?
Also true!"
Yes it is. Oh to have GW back...
Inga said..."Yes it is. Oh to have GW back..."
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_s6W6nHHq5gg/S42LWY2yHWI/AAAAAAAAANk/myQIg4VgVFo/s400/george-bush-miss-me-yet.jpg
Yes it is. Oh to have GW back...
Just think, this could be Romney's second term. Given of what little Obama did in the last four years that Trump isn't actively tearing up, you might have been better off.
Too bad Romney was outed by the media for giving his employee cancer and putting his dog on the roof.
Paco: We now return you to your regularly scheduled tu quoque-fest.
You should write a script to automatically post this every time the usual suspects show up and engage in more than, say, two or three exchanges.
It won't stop them, but it might clue in any newcomers, and give the rest of us a chuckle as we go about stepping over the turds on the sidewalk.
Oh, and this started with Obama?!
No, it didn't. It goes back to the founding of the Republic. But the claim here is that poor old Donald Trump is being picked on like no other president.
Both sides.
The Sunday morning political shows today talked about that. The lefty and righty pundits all agreed that we've got problems all around; we all must take responsibility.
It's not the case. The nuts are on the left. The nut-scales are not balanced with righties and lefties. Those scales are tilted far left.
The AntiFa crazies seem dedicated to the proposition that they can push things so far, so fast, that they will provoke righties (or maybe lefties; who knows?) to go as violent as they wish. That's kinda what Charles Manson thought and wanted: a race war, a helter-skelter reaction that would enable the change he sought.
Once written, twice... said...
So Ann, do you want to have the "New Tone" or not?
I hope it won't be seen as policing to remind you that Meadehouse specifically wants you, Onesie, gone, but is too gentle to enforce it, and you take advantage of this everyday. I haven't noticed much in the way of a new and improved tone from you. I certainly find you contribute nothing here except discord and rancor.
Frankly, though Ann finds it desirable to cultivate lefties to avoid an "echo chamber," I suspect that we would get better opposing views by posing rightist vs rightist and having one side take the contra as a debate exercise.
You guys (honorable exceptions aside) exemplify the pigeon theory of chess: you strut around the board making messes, knocking over pieces, then flutter off declaring victory. Very infrequently do you offer anything that makes me go Hmmm. I'm more likely to get that out of the softer or more moderate rightists.
Kevin,
How far back should we go?
Good question. Where in fact may it have begun? JFK? FDR? Lincoln? Jackson? What is clear is that it is getting worse.
Kevin demands: So what's it going to be, Althouse commenters? What's it going to be?
I reserve the right to be inconsistent. :-)
Inga said..."Yes it is. Oh to have GW back..."
Really? The left treated him with such civility:
http://www.frumforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/bush-protest.jpg
I can see why the left misses him. He ignored the slanders and hatred. It's always nice when your punching bag doesn't punch back.
Sometimes there are not two sides to an argument.
"What is clear is that it is getting worse."
The Ratchet of Partisanship: I do to you what I think you did to me, with a tiny bit extra on top. Repeat as needed.
Conservatives did attack Obama for his actions, rhetoric and thin resume. That is normal politics and it is fair.
A few wackos raised the issue of his religion and birth status. The MSM and their allies vigorously defended Obama (mostly by ignoring the facts about his shady past, like the Rev. Wright) in their zeal to elevate him to "God" status. Neither approach is fair.
The slobbering love affair (not my words, but those of Democrat, ex-CBS newsman Bernie Goldberg) was so absurd as to award Obama the Nobel Peace prize when he was in office for two months.
How did the MSM treat Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes? They brainwashed leftists into thinking that all Republicans are stupid and/or evil, regardless of evidence.
Thus, Trump talking about grabbing pussies is worse than Bill Clinton raping Juanita Broderick, groping Kathleen Willey in the WH, using state troopers to intimidate Paula Jones into giving him a BJ, sticking a cigar into a child's twat (Monica Lewinsky) in the Oval Office .
That's only what know publicly about Bill, but he's your hero and his co-felon wife was your preferred POTUS. You folks have no intellectual honesty and seem to have lost touch with reality.
Brit Hume and Juan Williams on "Fox News Sunday" today said pretty much the same thing: they've never seen political discord this bad.
These are two good journalists who survived Watergate, the Clinton impeachment, Chimpy McBusHitler, and Obama the non-American.
It's not Trump the media hates as much as the people that voted for him.
Trump is just a convenient figurehead.
Franklin has it right. To the Progs, we're not just enemies of the state but enemies of the PLANET. Trump provides a handy way to concentrate their hatred.
BTW I honor and respect President GW Bush, but now I see that he made a number of mistakes that have harmed us, not least to evince a (Christlike?) attitude of "won't fight back" that has been taken for weakness and duly exploited.
If he wanted input, he (as the rest of the party) should have done his part to maintain the lines of communication instead of doing the Pontius Pilate. To regard Obama as more tolerable than Trump is a bad sign.
Noonan is saying in another way what is already known: the USA is a divided country almost 50:50. Trump's election to president has brought the divisions out into the open.
The divisions are deep and as such there won't be any kumbaya healing in the future. The "progressives" will gravitate towards the large city conurbations as they already are. The Right will occupy the rest of the country. In fact, just like the electoral map of 2016.
Even if the Right continue to win future elections, the country's wealth will be generated by the city states and eventually they will demand or grab power or split based on that simple fact.
The Progressives hate the Right and the Right hate the Progressives. This has been building up for decades and the best option is to accept this reality and start looking for solutions where the Progressives and the Right have very little to do with each other.
Chris Wallace, speaking of FNS, got into a nasty shouting match with Jay Sekulow about Trump and his tweet about being investigated.
Wallace was imitating Kamala Harris by never letting Sekulow answer. What is it with Fox these days ?
He has not released his tax returns (and the excuse that they are under audit doesn't fly as he has many years of tax returns that are not under audit).
The old lefty tax return gambit. You would not understand them if he did release them. You just want to find some tidbit to flog to the ignoramuses who make up the lefty base like the shooter and his economic idiocy.
start looking for solutions where the Progressives and the Right have very little to do with each other.
The problem is that the left can make money with the new vaporware like Facebook, but they turn their cities into hellholes like London is turning out to be. London used to be a peaceful fun city. I've been going there for 40 years. I've probably been there the last time.
I grew up in Chicago and there are still people making good livings there but they have to live in lakefront high rises with armed doormen.
The rest of the city is like the city in the first "Batman" movie.
New York City got cleaned up by Rudy but it is sliding back to anarchy with the present communist Mayor.
The left has big cities but they want to move if they have children or if they want a peaceful life.
The rest of us don't want them around as they bring the crazies with them.
I agree there will be a reorganization, something on the order predicted by Jim Bennet and Mike Lotus's book America 3.0"
But first will come the civil war.
On the subject of words vs actions, most of the hysterical, violent anti-Trump rhetoric is about Trump's words, not his actions. Trump said this or Trump tweeted that.
What policies has he promoted or executive orders has he signed that are so extreme, so beyond the pale?
What has Trump actually done that is so outrageous...besides defeating Hillary, I mean.
Unk. said:
"The Progressives hate the Right and the Right hate the Progressives. This has been building up for decades and the best option is to accept this reality and start looking for solutions where the Progressives and the Right have very little to do with each other."
If you truly believe this, then the answer is federalism. Let the red states run their lives as they see fit, and let the blue states do too. Our real problem is the Federal government being so powerful that whichever side captures the reins feels empowered to force the other to conform to their ideas of morality. Make no mistake, this is about morality, and each side is so sure they are right they have no empathy for anyone who disagrees.
Disempower the Federals, and much of this will subside.
Inga said... It started with Trump's campaign speeches...
If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Barack Obama, Philadelphia, June 2008
If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us... Barack Obama, October 2010.
That's just how white folks will do you. ..... It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn. Barack Obama, Dreams of My Father
Inga said..."Yes it is. Oh to have GW back..."
Oh, Please! Your side said that George W was like "Hitler". It doesn't matter who the Republicans elected, the left would say they were 'Hilter" and "want to see children and old people die" or whatever. Think how they treated Mitt Romney, who is politically very moderate, and a pretty nice guy when compared to most politicians. Think how they talked about Paul Ryan when he ran for VP - he WANTED to kill old ladies.
To the left, all republicans are evil and deserve ill treatment by the 'good people' - ie the leftists*.
*(I refuse to call them 'liberal' - there is nothing liberal about the modern American left)
My dear Inga, if Democrats wanted Obamacare to succeed they should have voted for Romney 4 1/2 years ago. Surely no one really believes that Barack ever was a competent administrator.
Thaddeus Jenkins, Diary from the Civil War II...
2018: times seemed more Innocent back then. Sure, the fabric was tearing, but you could still chill out and watch a movie on your iPhone. Of course, that was before the bombing of Apple and the global iPhone Hack that rendered all of the devices useless. Who knew that would be what kicked the War off: the silencing of glorified cell phones...
No one uses personal phones anymore: both sides monitored all calls, which led to the beatings and lynchings of those who spoke out. Some said it was about time that it was White Men being lynched, which only raised the level of fighting...
Soon, people refused to talk with anyone but family and trusted friends: little did they know a lot of 'trusted friends' can't be trusted, after all: so many people turned over to the Authorities and disappeared: I hear the massive Government Prison Complexes in North Dakota are worse than the Soviet Gulags...
Brothers turned against brothers, women turning on their friends: it's been several years now, and the Lines are drawn more sharply than ever. There were rumors that the two Presidents were going to meet, but the Media Assassinations took over all discourse...
Joe Scarborough, killed by explosives packed in a Chinese Take-Out box. Chuck Todd, shot when a truck smashed through his armored convoy and shot him in the back seat of his limo. And it got worse from there...
I am Laslo.
The left sees the right as a threat, and the right sees the left as entertainment.
rhhardin said...
The left sees the right as a threat, and the right sees the left as entertainment.
6/18/17, 10:45 AM
It was entertaining to watch MSNBC on election night. They are not so entertaining when they are hitting people over the head with bike locks, patrolling campuses with baseball bats or shooting up baseball fields.
Inga said...
"As long as you define "hate speech" as any speech with which you disagree your side will perceive a culture of hate."
"That's is also true of your side. I actually don't define it as "hate speech" in the legal sense, but more hateful speech in the moral sense."
No. It is not.
You are not, as a group, referred to as "evil" we do not encourage our people to "punch back twice as hard" or "if they bring a knife you bring a gun" my rhetoric does not encourage others to take their firearms to a ball park and shoot democrats.
To show moral equivalency you must first show that you are moral. That you have moral standing.
The left is morally bankrupt. For proof you only have to look at the outrageous ways classic liberals-conservatives to you- are treated on campuses.
"Everybody knows everything about Trump. He has been a media figure for decades."
Last night we were watching a relatively early Castle episode about a murdered beauty pageant contestant. Made maybe 4-5 years before Trump became President. Guy who owned the contest was named Baron, and his building, in which the action happened, was named something like Baron Tower. So, the discussion moved directly to how much he looked like Trump. Same blocky figure, different face, but maybe similar profile. Wife not nearly as classy though. Pretty sure that we were supposed to think that it was about Trump and his Miss Universe patent, but the lawyers wouldn't let them use the real names (probably without payment and giving up some editorial control to Trump). And, now Trump spotting is an added feature of watching movies set in NYC. Every once in awhile you see him in a cameo playing himself. In America outside of NYC (and probably throughout much of the rest of the world), he has been maybe the most instantly recognizable New Yorker there is (though Chuck Schumer may be second) for a number of years now. Decades at least.
New York City got cleaned up by Rudy but it is sliding back to anarchy with the present communist Mayor.
Actually, the crime rate in New York is lower than it was during any of the Guiliani years. As usual, to fit your worldview, you spew bullshit regardless of the facts.
As for London. The horrific news last week had nothing with violent crime, other than the crimes committed by the privatization of council housing where the private company managing the property puts profits ahead of the safety of its residents. As for crime in London, it peaked in the early 2000s and has been static the last few years (there were a whopping 118 murders in London in 2015, a little more than half the rate in 2004)
You have to distrust everything that relates to Trump now... even that story about how the remarks of Trumps cabinet members at a cabinet meeting were not the way the media spun them to be.
Somebody watched the whole video and found out what really happened.
The Kiss-Up That Wasn't"
The media have a bad case of the Trumps"
The video the media played was a mashup designed to make it look like his cabinet was kissing up to him.
Rusty is correct. To hell with this tu quoque merde.
The right is fed up. Trump is a signpost for them. You see even upstanding people like Glenn Reynolds saying things like if you want to start this war, you're not gonna like the results.
Bruce Hayden,
Michael McKean played the Trump role.
@Lem,
That's interesting article in the Weekly Standard. Thanks.
I cannot imagine why any fair minded person would trust the MSM.
we do not encourage our people to "punch back twice as hard"
Well, no, Melania said that Trump will punch back ten times as hard. So I guess you are technically correct.
As for not being called evil, the entire thesis of right wing radio (Rush, Hannity, etc.) is that liberals are evil.
@Yancey - I think that he did a decent job of it. Somewhat vain and bombastic. The important thing was that you immediately thought "Trump".
She sounds snobby
Are you calling one Margaret Ellen Noonan a snob? She talks to her grocer! She talks to her doorman!
Meanwhile, the dust up du jour is Megyn Kelly. The poor sex selling Ailes Blonde is so determined to be a real journalist that she did just that at NBC, and that has blown up in her face.
NBC wants narrative promoting Fake journalists, and has discovered that she is their worst enemy. She let the Connecticut School shooting narrative come into question and normalized Evil Vlad.
Megyn is lucky to still be alive.
Kevin said...
Neither side should take solace in the idea that the angry rhetoric of the other is "more hateful". Gradations of hate can lead to nothing but a full nuclear exchange.
There is a group of 100 people. They each work all week at whatever they do. They each have their own property, house, food.
Every Sunday they get together to discuss philosophy. It is a great day. People bring in their own ideas. They have wonderful discussions. Then they tell each other "see you next Sunday" and go back to work.
One Sunday a particularly bright gentlemen, We will call him Karl, decides that discussing philosophy is not enough. He decides that if you get enough people to agree on something then everyone should live by it.
All of a sudden the discussions are no longer jovial. Why do you suppose that is?
Also why do the people on he right use the outdated term Republic and the Karl's on the site use the word Democracy?
Actually, the crime rate in New York is lower than it was during any of the Guiliani years. As usual, to fit your worldview, you spew bullshit regardless of the facts.
FF, are you a New Yorker? Do you live or work here? I want to know if you are relating to the street scene you saw yesterday on Amsterdam Ave, or reading out of the CIA World Factbook for your take, before I reply.
"More hateful" only serves to create a sense of entitlement and superiority that distracts from the problem at hand.
"More hateful" creates the othering which is essential to the dehumanization of "the enemy".
Laslo at 10:44: Interesting fantasy. I'd really like to believe it won't come to that but it might. You're right about family and friends. Both my brother and sister would turn me over to the Committee of Public Safety in a heartbeat. Enemy of the planet, y'know.
Field Marshall Freder, world traveler, is now informing us what wonderful place NYC and London have become under their new Mayors.
Yes, London is peaceful, if you ignore the you-know-whats.
MORE than 1000 Muslims took to the streets of London last night chanting Allahu Akbar and demanding an Islamic caliphate.
The street outside the empty embassy in Belgrave Square, London, was closed off as it filled with protestors and Islamic leaders chanting loudly and calling for America to be punished over Aleppo.
The demonstration became an alternative to an official rally calling for an end to the bloodshed in Syria outside Downing Street.
During the speeches which lasted almost an hour the crowd chanted Allahu Akbar 'God is the greatest' and cheered for those calling for a global caliphate.
If you mention anything negative about Muslims in London, You may be arrested.
Tommy Robinson has been widely condemned for launching into a tirade about Islamic extremism at the scene of a suspected terrorist attack in Westminster.
The former English Defence League leader rushed to the Houses of Parliament in London after news of the attacks emerged. Although details about the alleged assailant and their motive remains unclear, Mr Robinson claimed Britain was at “war” with Islamic fundamentalists.
New York City is not so safe for cops but you can't say it.
During a panel discussion on CNN’s New Day about police killing two black men, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, Houck argued that “racial demagogues” were wrong to complain about “disparities of blacks and whites in jails.”
Houck presented a sheet of paper which he said had statistics proving that black people were far more likely to commit violent crimes than whites.
“That’s why there are more blacks in jail than there are whites,” he insisted. “They turn it around — the racial demagogues out there — turn it around that the blacks are being picked on.”
DailyKos was horrified.
It;s early but NYC will slide into anarchy. It's early but the cops have quit and the squeegee men will return.
Street stops by New York City police officers have plunged since 2011 and a new statistical analysis by a federal monitor concludes that the racial disparity in stops is narrowing.
The analysis, undertaken as part of a federal court order, examined stops from 2013 to 2015 after criticism of the high rates of stops in black and Hispanic neighborhoods had already led to the start of a drastic decline in them.
The crimes are still being committed by you-know-who but it can't be said.
Freder Frederson said...
As for not being called evil, the entire thesis of right wing radio (Rush, Hannity, etc.) is that liberals are evil.
If one side wins it leaves the other side alone.
If the other side wins it takes everyone's stuff and distributes as they see fit, tells everyone who can use what bathrooms, how to run their business, how much they have to pay people, what kind of insurance they can buy, forms little mobs that beat dissenters, and in the end has murdered over a hundred million people because they angered the masters.
Freder Frederson said...
As for not being called evil, the entire thesis of right wing radio (Rush, Hannity, etc.) is that liberals are evil.
Liberals are not evil - leftists are corrupt liars.
If the other side wins it takes everyone's stuff and distributes as they see fit, tells everyone who can use what bathrooms, how to run their business, how much they have to pay people, what kind of insurance they can buy, forms little mobs that beat dissenters, and in the end has murdered over a hundred million people because they angered the masters.
Thank you for disproving Rusty's point for me. He claimed that the right does not characterize the left as evil. Your post just demonstrates he is full of shit.
Freder Frederson said...
"If the other side wins it takes everyone's stuff and distributes as they see fit, tells everyone who can use what bathrooms, how to run their business, how much they have to pay people, what kind of insurance they can buy, forms little mobs that beat dissenters, and in the end has murdered over a hundred million people because they angered the masters."
Thank you for disproving Rusty's point for me. He claimed that the right does not characterize the left as evil. Your post just demonstrates he is full of shit.
Rusty said...
To show moral equivalency you must first show that you are moral. That you have moral standing.
The left is morally bankrupt. For proof you only have to look at the outrageous ways classic liberals-conservatives to you- are treated on campuses.
You really aren't that smart are you.
"Actually, the crime rate in New York is lower than it was during any of the Guiliani years. As usual, to fit your worldview, you spew bullshit regardless of the facts."
*************************************
Freder is correctamente.
https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/Local/RunCrimeJurisbyJurisLarge.cfm
Violent crime has been falling for decades in NYC, while the population has risen by about 1.3 million.
Rudy cut the crime rate roughly in half during his tenure. It's fallen an additional one-third, roughly, since then, stabilizing at roughly 50,000 over the past ten years.
"the day people deamanded someone denounce"
Hang on a sec. You may not have been around the week prior during the "bodyslammed" reporter nonsense. The (someone) in question flooded the thread with demands we all denounce the congressman who "slammed" the reporter, dishing out shame to everyone who simply wanted to wait till all the facts were in.
It was incredibly annoying and self-righteous. Which is why she was hounded in return and without mercy when she refused to abide by her own standard to denounce the shooting.
People were really sick of the fake "denounce" hectoring so they got some payback, making her play by her own rules so that maybe she would realize what she had inflicted on others.
Maybe not your intent, but don't martyr her. She deserved all the heat she got.
NOTE TO ALL READERS:
There is no legal sense of "hate speech" because there is no hate speech exception under the First Amendment. Leftists are full of shit on this count.
"You cant have it both ways."
Very True. I agree. Words people should say to themselves in the mirror every morning. As momma said: the worse person to try to fool is yourself.
Add the fact that when you try to call out the hypocrisy of political opponents, you realize you could be doing THAT for years and years on end. Which is why most reasonable people give up on trying to point out ALL the little ones, so that we can have some measure of peace. We are not perfect beings, so you can bear the SMALL hypocrises. Others like Lazlo turn the ceaseless debate into creative allegory.
If i may generalize - it has been tough for many reasonable people (i self-identify) who go to work be it to push paper cook eggs take vitals etc to wonder why the morning news is all breathless about hearings in washington on this then that than about this thing said three hearings ago have to do with effective legislation and budgets SIX months into the mandate.
For many people there was a vote. Most people then got on with their lives, whether they saw the result as tragic or great.
However, for others, on Election Day +1, there has been a ceaseless attempt to overturn the result. Not criticize the fruit of that days choice - but to unwork it. For some, that would be ok, so they might go along, albeit passively, cause hello mr other Ox. That, i believe, is the source of much acrimony.
Once written, twice... said...
Commenter Kevin made the most relevant point in this thread. Thank you for raising the level of discussion here."
I rarely agree with you but on this you are 100% correct.
The difficulty becomes in assigning what portion to agency and what portion to incitement and what portion to the general climate that provides the growth media for the incitement to have a real effect on agency. Kevin pointed out the obvious that is usually overlooked (as most here including myself often make) in making binary arguments. While simplification is always helpful as Eisenstein said (not exact quote) things should be made as simple as possible but not simpler.
"Freder is correctamente. "
I said it was sliding and it will. Just wait a couple of years. It took years for NYC to get to what it was in 1972.
Just wait.
Violent crime has been falling for decades in NYC, while the population has risen by about 1.3 million.
"Cleaned up" refers to more than just violent crime, which as you note, declined precipitously under Giuliani and Bloomberg, but has ceased declining since then. There's also been huge increase in people living in the streets, public urination (officially made legal in 2016), etc. It won't be long till squeegee guys and "wilding" returns, if they haven't already.
"The entire thesis of AM radio is that liberals are evil"
Can you provide some examples, because I feel you are paraphrasing.
I agree that Left is immmoral, corrupt, intellectually dishonest and with situational ethics. Selfish, greedy, narcissistic. Virtue signaling as an Indulgence to compensate for being jerks in tbeir daily lives.
And I agree that Socialism as a political philosophy is *actually* evil, and that Marxists are as reprehensible as Nazis, if not more so.
But who has literally called liberals "evil" ? Because I don't hear a "liberals are evil" refrain like the liberal counterpart of "racist sexist homophobe".
Unknown said...
Even if the Right continue to win future elections, the country's wealth will be generated by the city states and eventually they will demand or grab power or split based on that simple fact.
You're forgetting the most of the food creation and manufacturing resides in the red parts of the country... paper wealth won't mean shit if you're starving and can't wipe your ass...
I said it was sliding and it will. Just wait a couple of years.
It will be three years in October since stop and frisk as it was practiced in NYC was declared unconstitutional. We were assured by the right wing press that crime would immediately skyrocket in NYC. Didn't happen.
How much longer do we have to wait until you admit you were wrong?
Fen
Easier to call them collectivists so as to avoid the ritual lies that the National Socialists were somehow on the "Right".
public urination (officially made legal in 2016)
It wasn't made legal, it was made a civil violation. That helps clear the backlog in criminal court.
RE: Crime Statistics
Is it Denver that just declared crime by illegal immigrants would no longer be charged as crime in order to avoid deportation orders? Why, I believe it is.
Tell me again why I should trust crime statistics out of big cities.
For those keeping score of Leftist tolerance:
Illegal Aliens > Abused Women
The crime statistics (which redefined crimes) are down.
In other news, the chocolate ration has been increased from 12 to 10 grams.
Jay Elink said...
"Actually, the crime rate in New York is lower than it was during any of the Guiliani years. As usual, to fit your worldview, you spew bullshit regardless of the facts."
*************************************
Freder is correctamente.
Do you know what a mathematical derivitive is?
For those of you who don't:
"In mathematics, the derivative is a way to represent rate of change, that is - the amount by which a function is changing at one given point. For functions that act on the real numbers, it is the slope of the tangent line at a point on a graph."
The way Freder is correct is to ignore causality.
Giuliani put New York on a trend line. De Blasio has changed the direction of that trend line. I was going to talk bout second derivatives but nobody likes math that much. The trend line for crime is already going in the wrong direction particularly if you focus on specific neighborhoods.
@Tim Gilliland
Well said. However the devil is in the details. Just how much power does a State have over individuals and legal entities in a reverted back to basics Republic? There is a reason the Articles Of Confederation were supplanted by the Constitution and that the Northwest Ordinance was enacted under the Articles and again under the Constitution.
Calling the Rrpublican party or candidate Hitler goes back to Roosevelt. Trump is only the latest.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262157/every-republican-presidential-candidate-hitler-daniel-greenfield
Why do this? Same with the term racist, sexist, etc?
Because it works. And trying to disprove a negative is harder than attacking. Trump attacks, and goes full Alinsky. He does Alinsky better than his opponents.
If you have not, read Alinsky's rules for radicals.
cubanbob,
The other question is what conventions can be placed in the way of a determined federal government that wishes itself more powerful. The Founders placed as many hurdles as they could in the way and those were eroded by the Progressive Amendments (direct elections of U.S. Senators) and a progressive president who threatened to pack the Supreme Court.
The Legislative has willingly ceded power to the Executive under the 1946 A.P.A. The Court decided in Chevron that it would defer to the Executive. So all three branches have grown in power and all three have ceded much of that power to the Executive. And nearly everybody in the Executive Branch faces no voters, is protected by civil service laws and extracts money from the electorate as quickly as it can.
Remember, 8 of the 10 richest counties in America are D.C. suburbs by design.
Even if we can extract ourselves from the current situation it is not at all clear how we might maintain that newfound freedom.
Correct, I should have said de-criminalized, not made legal. But what do you expect to be the result of substantially reduced penalties for public urination, littering, and drinking in public? Along with greater tolerance of people sleeping on sidewalks and in subway stations? As a NYC resident I see the results every day.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a crime is committed but nobody reports it, is it a crime? Or if someone reclassifiies it into nothing, is any harm still done?
Tim Gilliland said...
If you truly believe this, then the answer is federalism. Let the red states run their lives as they see fit, and let the blue states do too. Our real problem is the Federal government being so powerful that whichever side captures the reins feels empowered to force the other to conform to their ideas of morality. Make no mistake, this is about morality, and each side is so sure they are right they have no empathy for anyone who disagrees.
Disempower the Federals, and much of this will subside.
That ignores the most basic point of the conflict:
One side wants to leave everyone alone.
The other side wants to tell everyone what to do.
Impasse.
"What about eight years of trying to delegitimize Obama?"
True!
Stupid.Point to New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC all local tv news, mainstream national magazines, famous entertainers delegitimizing Obama on a daily basis.
Oh, right, Rush Limbaugh with a daytime radio program, Ted Nugent, mediocre old rock guy, and Donald Trump, birther.
If MSM focused on positive stories about Trump, his approval would be in 70's
Kevin: " I'm arguing against those who claim its deeds and never words"
Then you'll be looking for this:
"No one ever died from reading Der Sturmer, but the culture it served caused six million jews to drop dead" - George Will
Words do matter. For the last 30 years of my life, liberals have slimed me as racist, sexist and homophobic almost every single day. Why do you think I hate them so much? The only reason I haven't illed every last one of those motherfuckers is because that would be illegal.
Emotional abuse is much worse than physical abuse. I know this as a child of two alcoholics. Words matter.
...also, put me down as against any reconciliation of any kind. :)
Freder Frederson said...
we do not encourage our people to "punch back twice as hard"
"Well, no, Melania said that Trump will punch back ten times as hard. So I guess you are technically correct."
Melania Trump is not a sitting president.
"As for not being called evil, the entire thesis of right wing radio (Rush, Hannity, etc.) is that liberals are evil."
You don't listen to right wing radio much, do you? The entire thesis is you on the left are woefully misinformed. Not evil. Not even Michael savage would stoop that low.
Which is why my wife won't let me have super powers. Or WMDs. Or a Monster Truck.
And by "Punch back twice as hard." the left took it to mean that it doesn't matter if someone on the right hits you first, just wade in swinging. Like Chicago and Berkley.
or if you have a firearm, start shooting.
The New Yorker is the worst example, especially its editor-in-chief.
"How much longer do we have to wait until you admit you were wrong?"
Hey, if you live there, you don't have to wait. I don't live there. I don't care.
You might try to understand what Achilles is trying to tell you but you won't.
Math is hard.
If you truly believe this, then the answer is federalism. Let the red states run their lives as they see fit, and let the blue states do too. Our real problem is the Federal government being so powerful that whichever side captures the reins feels empowered to force the other to conform to their ideas of morality. Make no mistake, this is about morality, and each side is so sure they are right they have no empathy for anyone who disagrees.
Disempower the Federals, and much of this will subside.
I've been arguing this for some time. But either everyone needs to move to the state of their color or states need to be redistricted to reflect their electorates. Either way, it's the only solution.
Freder is exactly correct. People like him are going to blame the right no matter how deadly the left becomes.
So, if we're going to get blamed no matter what? Why not get our money's worth?
You're headed down a very dangerous path, leftists.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.
Freder reminds of nothing so much as the guy who said, "Crime is down and the prisons are full. I can't understand this !"
Of course words matter, otherwise propaganda wouldn't be such an effective tool. Journalists can sway public opinion with a well-written headline. The media with the highest degree of professionalism tried to maintain a separation of facts and opinions, and were respected for it. But that professionalism is gone, and so is the respect for most print and cable media news outlets. I have more respect for the amateur youtube citizen journalists, and bloggers like Althouse.
In addition to the decline in journalistic ethics we have a President who will fight back against the propaganda attacks from media, unlike previous presidents who shrugged it off. That has the effect of ratcheting up the intensity of the media hostility, especially since it is a ratings boon for them. Hate gets eyeballs.
Media talking-heads like to blame the current ugly political climate all on Trump, while ignoring the role they play. We ended up with Trump, in part, because of what the DNC-controlled media propaganda machine did to Romney. I think people on the right decided that in order to win, they were going to need someone tougher, someone willing to fight back. And thus we got Trump, the uncouth. The man willing to take on the media by weaponizing twitter.
I've never been bothered by heated rhetoric on the internet. And I shrug off the tasteless political commentary of the so-called entertainment industry. I'm not in favor of any sort of censorship. But I am bothered when I see media outlets colluding with political parties and unelected bureaucrats to destroy a democratically elected President. Some people's words carry more weight than others because of the power they have.
TL;DR: IMO, the media created the monster Trump, and now they want to destroy him. The fallout from that battle is radicalizing people on the left and right. My hope is that people can keep their wits and simply turn of the cable news, ignore click-bait rags like wapo and the nyt, and step away from the propaganda being fed to them on social media. Or at least be "woke" enough to recognize that they are being manipulated for ratings.
Great comment, Kevin.
Achilles said...
"Do you know what a mathematical derivitive is?
For those of you who don't:
"In mathematics, the derivative is a way to represent rate of change, that is - the amount by which a function is changing at one given point. For functions that act on the real numbers, it is the slope of the tangent line at a point on a graph."
The way Freder is correct is to ignore causality.
Giuliani put New York on a trend line. De Blasio has changed the direction of that trend line. I was going to talk bout second derivatives but nobody likes math that much. The trend line for crime is already going in the wrong direction particularly if you focus on specific neighborhoods.
***************************************
Since the stats for the past ten years have plateaued at a much lower level than before, de Blasio hasn't "changed" the trend line much at all. It was already there, i.e. the derivative has essentially been asymptotically trending toward zero well before he took office.
If you want to argue that the trend "should" have continued absent de Blasio you need to explain the plateauing before he took office, AND why you think violent crime stats MUST continue to fall (to zero?) in a city of 8.3 million.
As for ignoring causality: you didn't offer anything substantive to link deBlasio to violent crime. "Quality of life" issues, sure. But that's not violent crime, nor is it anarchy.
"I've been arguing this for some time. But either everyone needs to move to the state of their color or states need to be redistricted to reflect their electorates. Either way, it's the only solution."
So if Althouse stays in Wisconsin she would need to move to my county (or some other red county) and me to hers. Dane County won't ever be redistricted to a red zone. And my county won't be turning blue anytime soon. It will never happen.
Every liberal loves the last Republican administration.
The problem they have with Trump is that he punches back.
The media have no clue, NONE, on how to deal with it.
Their hatred stems from the fact that they are no longer in charge of the narrative.
Without that, where's their power?
Now I need to explain DeBlasio absent Bloomberg's existence?
Increased from 12 to 10 grams, the chocolate ration has. (Yoda voice)
These things are low and grubby, and people are slobs. She sounds snobby: The good people, the tone setters, are not showing the little people the right way to act.
I don't think "low" and "grubby" are really the right words for this. "Low" and "grubby" are things like sex scandals, money scandals, politicians going to prostitutes and that sort of thing. The Clinton Foundation's suspiciously long list of foreign donors, for example, or Clinton I's sex scandals -- these epitomise the "low" and the "grubby" in politics.
What we see today with Antifa goons beating people in the street, attempted mass murder of Congressmen, and strident TV commentators egging them on may be grotesque, but it is neither low, nor grubby. Rather, it burns with a pure, clean, mad fanaticism. It is madness, not the usual business of politics. And perhaps the better sort of people ought to be ashamed, but what they have become is not shameful because it is low or grubby, but because it is mad -- heedless, reckless, without a thought for what comes after.
Somebody should write a book about what the Hillary Clinton presidency would have been like. She certainly didn't make that clear during the campaign, except to say that she wasn't Trump. The more thoughtful Progressives realize that she was bought and paid for by the economic royalists of Media, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street, and would have governed as such.
"what they have become is not shameful because it is low or grubby, but because it is mad -- heedless, reckless, without a thought for what comes after." Not quite. The "madness" is calculated, and what comes after is "terminate the Republican Party" and total prog power.
Re: Sebastian:
Not quite. The "madness" is calculated, and what comes after is "terminate the Republican Party" and total prog power.
But is it really? Have they really thought this through? What happens next, when the lesson they have taught Trump's voters is that elections don't really matter, that no matter what, the professionals in the civil service will openly conspire to block the elected government from carrying out policies they dislike, and masked thugs will rampage openly in the streets with the mute connivance of simpering local officials.
I really don't think they have. They're like the Japanese at Midway, assuming their enemy lacks the will to counterattack forecefully.
Freder,
You meant the 8 years of Bush. FIFY. Obama got a pass from MSM and establishment. But you already know that.
Who's this "they" she refers to? It ought to be "me" (Noonan) and "we" (Noonan and the rest of her Establishment gang).
Until Noonan admits that she is part of the problem, she cannot be part of the solution.
"And I agree that Socialism as a political philosophy is *actually* evil, and that Marxists are as reprehensible as Nazis, if not more so."
I have always wondered why Hitler gets all the attention. Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot made Hitler look like a slacker.
Noonan's 15 minutes was up in 1984.
And perhaps the better sort of people ought to be ashamed, but what they have become is not shameful because it is low or grubby, but because it is mad -- heedless, reckless, without a thought for what comes after.
Helter-skelter, you might say. Since most of the Left is history-challenged, I would say they have no clue.
We're all being played.
I love Peggy Noonan. But she still clings to that failed strategy of taking the high road. And as Angel-Dyne mentioned upthdead, being more concerned about "tone" than Liberty. And the dangerously naive belief that if we just role model better manners, the Left will abandon their Marxist identity politics and quest for a totalitarian utopia where the State is God.
She's out of touch. NYC seduced her. She'll never get her mojo back living in the Capitol District of the Hunger Games.
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Maybe not your intent, but don't martyr her. She deserved all the heat she got.
Yes, not my intent to pick on anyone in particular, nor to spare anyone either. We're all sinners here, and all have had sins cast against us.
I picked that example because it was both recent and went against the grain of the majority.
Words do matter. For the last 30 years of my life, liberals have slimed me as racist, sexist and homophobic almost every single day.
The name calling is othering. Othering is dehumanizing. Dehumanizing creates no need for empathy or consideration.
If we doubt words matter, consider that the simple choice of a word can erase the personhood of an individual in our minds and the minds of others.
President Trump is a Republican (person with whom we have policy disagreements).
President Trump is a racist (irredeemable sub-human whose views can be ignored for the good of society).
What is even more concerning, is the term Republican is itself being turned into a slur. What words will we use to describe people with whom we have legitimate policy differences? And if there are no such words, can there still be legitimate policy differences?
And if there are no legitimate policy differences there is no political discourse. We have arrived at a totalitarian state.
And in the process, we have dehumanized all but about 25 people at the top.
"Punch back twice as hard."
I consider this to be Obama's greatest mistake. Greater than the red line or the Iran deal.
I think if you got him alone, he'd probably admit it too.
It is madness, not the usual business of politics.
I would choose a different word. I would call it a crusade.
I went to UC Berkeley in the 90's. Clinton was president. The left was happy. And still there were protests - against the most stupid stuff.
It occurred to me that there were a certain number of people on campus who were there to protest Whose parents had told them about the great civll rights marches of the 60's and the anti-war marches of the 70's, and how they had shaped their lives and given them purpose. In the 90's there were no great causes, but these kids were still looking for one - still looking for something to shape their lives around and prove their virtue.
Ultimately, that need would have to be filled. Ultimately, the next president would have to be some version of Jefferson Davis or LBJ. Ultimately someone was going to come along, sweep up that potential energy and put it to work.
We're seeing the effects of that today.
Re: Fen:
I love Peggy Noonan. But she still clings to that failed strategy of taking the high road. And as Angel-Dyne mentioned upthdead, being more concerned about "tone" than Liberty. And the dangerously naive belief that if we just role model better manners, the Left will abandon their Marxist identity politics and quest for a totalitarian utopia where the State is God.
Noonan is a conservative of a particular sort. I've commented before on how I think that manners and self-control are an intrinsic part of conservatism -- they're society's best defense against the lawyerly impulse towards absolute, totalising regulation, blank and pitiless as the sun. I think she shares the same idea of instinctive conservatism, whether she's articulated it in those terms or not. So it seems to me only natural that she would want people to "take the high road," to yield graciously to one another. Not necessarily because she expects reciprocity from the Left (if they were inclined to that sort of thing, they wouldn't be Leftists), but because it is the done thing, the right thing to do -- what one would do in a civilised society. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is essential to those customary forms of civilisation that they are not transactional -- otherwise they would immediately begin to unravel into a game of tit for tat at the first transgression. Precisely as has happened today.
But I am also sympathetic to the view that the time for social graces is ending; the rot has spread too far, and the system is already broken. If anything, the corruption of the Universities is the surest sign of this -- that there is no promise of decency just over the horizon, where a newer, gentler generation waits to take over from the old. No -- the youths of today may have soft bodies, but their minds are hard and cruel, wanton and brutal, savage and inflexible, and filled with arcane hatreds which are beyond my power to understand.
Trump is not a conservative, not in any meaningful sense. At most, he is a kind of revolutionary tribune for the people who have been spat upon and despised these many years, not a philosophical or instinctual conservative. And, well, to every thing there is a season.
"You're forgetting the most of the food creation and manufacturing resides in the red parts of the country... paper wealth won't mean shit if you're starving and can't wipe your ass..."
1. The city states can buy food from other countries in which case Trumpski country goes belly-up
2. The city states already outsource manufacturing and will increase it further in which case Trumpski country goes belly-up
3. City states own both real wealth (cash) and paper wealth (stocks)
Moral of story: engage brain before opening mouth.
Those ships will magically appear in port, unload themselves and drive themselves to the Whole Foods. And prices would remain stable too.
Because: reasons, you Damned Trumpskis.
This is all a misunderstanding.
This is not a "media climate".
The only people with an honest opinion in this whole mess are in the audience, or rather the audiences, and in that case all are to various degrees confused.
This is a centrally managed propaganda campaign intended to protect the interests of the media owners.
Blogger Kevin said...
"Punch back twice as hard."
"I consider this to be Obama's greatest mistake. Greater than the red line or the Iran deal.
I think if you got him alone, he'd probably admit it too."
Oh. I don't think so. I think he's keenly disappointed that democrats didn't punch early and often enough. Nothing he has said or done has given any indication that anything he has said or done was wrong. Introspection isn't in the man.
Obama has to understand his responsibility for what follows him. If he can't understand his role in that, he was unworthy of the office.
I'm giving him the benefit of reflection and hindsight over the last six months.
I'm from Chicago.
He was unworthy before he even took the job.
For the last 30 years of my life, liberals have slimed me as racist, sexist and homophobic almost every single day.
If this is true, you must be one hell of an insufferable prick who goes out of his way to foment confrontation.
After all, being a Republican makes you an insufferable person.
buwaya said...
This is all a misunderstanding.
This is not a "media climate".
The only people with an honest opinion in this whole mess are in the audience, or rather the audiences, and in that case all are to various degrees confused.
This is a centrally managed propaganda campaign intended to protect the interests of the media owners.
Carlos Slim. Comcast. Disney. Redstone.
The same people that donate the lions share of money that keeps the DC wheels lubricated.
Nobody wants to hear this Buwaya. Even as obvious as it has become since Trump won people still cling to the belief the media ever had any independence.
Kevin said...
Obama has to understand his responsibility for what follows him. If he can't understand his role in that, he was unworthy of the office.
Obama turned the federal civil service on his political enemies. Then he turned the surveillance agencies on his political enemies. And he got caught red handed.
He was never worthy of office but you could claim ignorance for voting for him. People who still support him now are enemies of freedom.
"I think if you got him alone, he'd probably admit it too."
I really don't think that Obama is that introspective.
Obama cared about power, specifically his own, but in a way that was overbearing such that his plans backfired.
The city states can buy food from other countries in which case Trumpski country goes belly-up
2. The city states already outsource manufacturing and will increase it further in which case Trumpski country goes belly-up
3. City states own both real wealth (cash) and paper wealth (stocks)
Here I am watching golf and stupidity breaks out.
You men all those countries we feed ? "City states" own ZIRP.
Why don;t you read this and figure out how much that "wealth" is?
She explained that many of the housing policies that precipitated the collapse, which she thought were positive before the crisis, are still in place today. She described mortgages that were well-intentioned but naïve. These loans were aimed at equalizing minority and white home ownership rates, but the results were devastating losses to communities of color, communities that are still slowly recovering from the housing crisis.
According to Landon Parsons, an investment banker and senior financial advisor for Moelis & Co., the only backup support for Freddie and Fannie is $260 billion in federal support, which he described as “just dangerous.”
“The U.S. taxpayer is not capital,” said Parsons, who advises shareholders at both Fannie May and Freddie Mac. “The U.S. taxpayer needs to be protected by capital. Running these entities with zero capital just makes no sense to me at all.”
You know what that means ? All that wealth the "city states" own is bullshit.
"Obama turned the federal civil service on his political enemies."
I don't think he considered them political enemies. In his mind that would be Nixonian.
I think he considered them truly bad people. This is the water in which he swam.
Adversaries: no.
Enemies: yes.
Here I am watching golf ....
Great round for Koepka. Great tournament, in fact.
Kevin said...
"Obama turned the federal civil service on his political enemies."
I don't think he considered them political enemies. In his mind that would be Nixonian.
I think he considered them truly bad people. This is the water in which he swam.
We are talking about Dennis Kucinich as well as many/most Republican Congresspeople. We are talking about any company that didn't donate money to the appropriate party being assaulted by a variety of federal agencies. The TEA party groups.
It was not a small number of people. It was pretty much anyone who didn't vote for him. The water he swam in was the leftist movement. There are dozens of examples throughout history of how they obtain and use power.
The left right now in this country is barely distinguishable from the National Socialist Workers Party in 1930's Germany. Replace White Male with Jew in the literature and the words of leaders of the Nazi party.
I agree Achilles. I'm just pointing out he considered them "on the wrong side of history" rather than seeing them as legitimate political alternatives.
How else can he say without a hint of remorse that there wasn't a smidgeon of corruption? He views the things you outlined above as the legitimate use of power within his worldview.
He has an Ivy League education. Isn't that what he was taught?
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