June 30, 2018

Calling bullshit on calls for civility.

That's something I always do. That's what my tag "civility bullshit" means: Calls for civility are always bullshit, because the real motivation is political advantage. Usually, the civility-demander is trying to get opponents tone it down and not take advantage of whatever hot passion and energy they've got on their side.

Sometimes though, the civility-demander wants a faction of his own side to rein it in, because it might scare the moderates and interfere with the message that we are the sane, reasonable, smart people. When that happens, you can get some in fighting, with the supposedly uncivil people insisting that now is not the time to be civil. These people are calling bullshit.

For example, today, I'm seeing, in The Guardian, a piece by David Smith, "How the Red Hen affair broke America's civility wars wide open/A restaurant’s choice to eject Trump’s press secretary stoked debate on how liberals should behave in an era of outrage":
The Democratic party establishment has urged caution, and asked supporters to resist sinking to Trump’s level. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said, “Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable”, while the Senate minority leader, Charles Schumer, said from the Senate floor that “the best solution is to win elections. That is a far more productive way to channel the legitimate frustrations with this president’s policies than with harassing members of his administration.”

But Pelosi and Schumer, aged 78 and 67 respectively, seem to have been left behind by liberal activists who believe that there can be no compromise in resisting Trump....

Neil Sroka, the communications director of the progressive political action committee Democracy for America, says: “It’s disappointing to see corporate Democrats hand-wringing over this. If they fall into the trap of the false equivalency, this is literally why we lose.

“I have a great deal of respect for Michelle Obama but I think 2016 showed us that ‘When they go low, we go high,’ does not work against Donald Trump. We have to be willing to call out the bigotry and the hate of this administration and make people feel uncomfortable for associating with that hate and bigotry.... The discussion of civility betrays how deep white supremacy is in our discourse. A black woman standing up there saying we should make these people uncomfortable becomes ‘uncivil'....”
And in The Atlantic, by Vann R. Newkirk II, "Protest Isn’t Civil/Attacks on incivility are rooted more in preserving the status quo than in addressing ongoing harms and violence":
Marginalized people remain at risk of being labeled “uncivil” for all but the most passive of disagreements. From outrage over black activists stopping cars in San Francisco to essays that lectured Women’s March participants for signs that “send a message of hostility to those conservatives and Trump voters,” to the two-year-long freakout about Colin Kaepernick’s choice to kneel, cries to return to civility often overshadow the actual violence being targeted by protest. Remarkably, the current national hand-wringing was provoked by two legal and entirely nonviolent methods of protest. Denying a senior administration official a meal is perfectly legal in Virginia; Waters advocated a campaign of public shaming, not acts of violence.

The term civility itself is more a reflection of majority-enforced social norms than of a proven set of rules for effective debate. Ironically, a country founded on on tea-dumping, property-smashing, and norm-breaking has as its major bipartisan project a robust defense of social norms. [Martin Luther King Jr.] understood this dynamic well, and even applied it to riots in the inner-city. “A riot is the language of the unheard,” King famously said in his “The Other America” speech....

What King understood was that civility stood not as a companion or a near-synonym to his project of radical, militant nonviolence, but as its most insidious opponent. King and his intellectual forebears engineered nonviolence specifically as a tool that would break the violent foundations of white supremacy, and doing so necessarily meant disrupting order and breaking the law. The current model of civility counsels accommodation to violent power, but that course of action is actually antithetical to the Kingian project...

The cruel irony is that the success of King’s own project has made the call for more civility from America’s aggrieved groups all the more routine. Poor people, immigrants, black activists, and perhaps LGBT employees at a restaurant in Virginia are bludgeoned into silence by the constant cry for civility, made to hold still as injustices are visited upon them. Meanwhile, those with no real fear that they’ll ever wind up on the wrong side of the power dynamic in America can scold and hector.....

Civility is an instinct that only serves to silence them. It is itself wielded as a cudgel against those already facing obliteration that dictates to them how they must face it. It snuffs out nonviolent and violent protest alike. Civility is the sleep-aid of a majority inclined to ignore the violence done in its name—because in the end, they will be alright.
Notice that complaints about calls for civility can also be one-sided. My "civility bullshit" theme treats everyone the same. I don't think Newkirk and Smith have my perspective. They think that their side can dispense with civility, and they don't like being told to stand down by people who are supposed to be their allies.

144 comments:

gspencer said...

Pssst, it's the left that's always the vicious aggressor.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"The Democratic party establishment has urged caution, and asked supporters to resist sinking to Trump’s level"

That's very Low IQ.

Has Trump asked his supporters to harass democrats?
Trump calls out the hack press, and right on Q the hivemind collective pee their pants. How dare you criticize the democrat party hack press! They are just doing their job vilifying Trump and his supporters with half truths and full on lies. Criticizing any democrat or democrat in the Chuck Todd/Rachel Maddow press should be illegal, like Citizens Untied against Hillary Clinton. (The left turned that into a big lie too.)

Quayle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Shorter Nancy and her hivemind: "You provoked us, so we get to harass you."

Quayle said...

In a one-up game, calls for civility are just another attempt to one-up. There are times when violence is the only way to peace and harmony. It all depends on the motive behind the violence. My feeling? Make your case. Persuade me. With civility or not. How to win friends and influence people. Or not. Then I'll vote and follow by my own choice.

MayBee said...

They have convinced themselves we are in a time of unprecedented peril, and that is hard to climb down from. The current media environment and social media feeds it.

Here's the thing I want to tell the outraged: if you are outraged from a place of love, try spreading love instead.

Quayle said...

"...try spreading love instead."

Calls for love are a tool of the Devil to keep the status quo. Calls for love are tools to keep you in power.

(These kinds of arguments appear to me even harder to climb down from.)

traditionalguy said...

The Mother of all progs incivility fits approaches. The Senate hearing on Emperor Trump's new Supreme Court nominee is gonna rock.

tim in vermont said...

If they fall into the trap of the false equivalency, this is literally why we lose.

Oh somebody has fallen into a trap of false equivalency, all right. But keep it up! I think you guys should go back to the tactic of blocking rush hour traffic with large signs making it clear who is responsible. When your enemy is in a hole, hand them a shovel.

sykes.1 said...

Every single instance of physical violence committed in the last several elections was committed by a Democrat against a Republican. The Red Flag of Socialist stands for blood and fire and the actual killing of the opposition. Socialism is an inherently violent ideology that incites, promotes and rewards violence. Hence Antifas and the so-called Anarchists.

With the rise of dedicated socialists to control of the Democrat Party, we can expect ever increasing levels of socialist violence. If Trump does get a conservative judge appointed to the Supreme Court, I should not be surprised to see actual riots in our major cities, all instigated by the DNC.

The socialists coming to power in the Democrat Party are also virulent anti-Semites and anti-White racists. Whites and Jews, at least those who are "woke," will be driven into the Republican Party to defend their lives and property and their children.

tim in vermont said...

Can anybody here understand why people would react negatively to a protest that kept them stuck in traffic trying to get home after a long day of work? Protesters who don’t actually work, BTW.

Anybody? I think that the only explanation for the negative reaction can only be the nefarious machinations of those evil twins racism and misogyny.

Meade said...

Out: Civil Disobedience

In: Obedient Incivility

MayBee said...

"false equivalency" is one of those liberal argument phrases that just sets my teeth on edge. You hear the term, you know you are hearing from a democrat activist. As far as I can tell it actually means "my concerns are more important than yours".

Oso Negro said...

Electing Trump was the language of the unheard. Do you hear them now?

tim in vermont said...

I think the trick to being a lefty public intellectual, and possibly to being a public intellectual at all, is to put your thoughts out there and not follow them to their most logical conclusion. Every public intellectual is seeking that role of the “one handed economist” that Harry Truman was looking for. The economist who never said “On the other hand...”

MayBee said...

Calls for love are a tool of the Devil to keep the status quo. Calls for love are tools to keep you in power.

(These kinds of arguments appear to me even harder to climb down from.)


True Quayle. But in my life, the people spewing hate are often telling themselves they are doing it in the name of love. You love gay people? You have to hate Christians. You love women? You have to hate Republicans who are pro-life. You love minorities? You have to say Trump is kidnapping brown babies and kick Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of your restaurant. These are people who consider themselves very loving, but their words are not spreading love.

Sebastian said...

"They think that their side can dispense with civility"

They think their side should win by any means necessary. Everything is a tool. The other side must be destroyed. The only restraint they recognize is power. Been that way since, oh, 1789.

Though some lefties may want an actual civil war, most don't quite calculate the reaction from the other side. So far, they have been counting on nice conservatives to be nice, because they want to conserve order and decency, don't they? But Trump shows that progs overestimate the influence of the Wills of the world. Most deplorables just don't give a damn anymore--not about civility, not about appeals to decency, not about BS about BS, not about fake news, not about #MeToo. After Biil and O and TDS, they are immune. Hasn't quite sunk in on the left yet.

Mike Sylwester said...

Six days ago, I posted Martin Luther King's "The Other America" speech on my blog about the movie Dirty Dancing. I posted King's speech in a post that I titled Baby Houseman's Thinking About Social Justice.

The Dirty Dancing movie takes place in 1963, a year after the publication of Michael Harrington's 1962 book The Other America: Poverty in the United States. That book profoundly affected liberals and soon became the intellectual basis for President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

Martin Luther King's 1967 speech "The Other America" obviously was based on Harrington's book.

I assume that the movie's liberal heroine Baby Houseman was influenced much by the book by the time that she graduated from college (she is 17 years old in 1963).

-----

In his book, Harrington argued that a major factor in the lives of many poor people was the so-called "Culture of Poverty", a concept developed in the preceding years by sociologist Oscar Lewis. In a nutshell, many poor people feel hopeless and so they indulge in self-defeating behaviors.

In the following years, Harrington has been criticized much for supporting that concept in his book.

-----

In my blog, this weekend, I will write another post developing the idea of Harrington's book, in particular of the Culture of Poverty.

The movie's story revolves around the encounter between the conventional, prosperous Houseman family and a team of non-conventional, economically struggling dancers who demonstrate several characteristics of the Culture of Poverty.

The female dancer, Penny Johnson, gets pregnant outside of marriage. She cannot afford an illegal abortion, even with the help of her dance partner Johnny Castle. Because of her unplanned pregnancy, both Penny and Johnny might lose their jobs.

In this situation, Baby gets to know Penny and Johnny and helps them pay for the abortion. As Baby's personal involvement with Penny and Johnny develop, she sees some of the helpless, resentful attitudes and self-defeating behaviors that characterize the Culture of Poverty.

Sebastian said...

"Denying a senior administration official a meal is perfectly legal in Virginia."

Good to keep in mind.

MayBee said...

I'm currently listening to a book that was recommended to me, "The Four Agreements".

Agreement #1: Be Impeccable With Your Words

This is playing over and over in my head these days. Truly truly advice that will make you a better person, and make the environment in this country better.

Quayle said...

Out with The Scarlet Letter: social pressure and ostracism, to condemn and punish "wrong" behavior.

In with the internet: social pressure and ostracism, to condemn and punish "wrong" behavior and all "wrong" words.

tim in vermont said...

Public intellectuals are like lawyers. It’s the other guy’s problem to bring up the facts that help his side. People reading the media from any one outlet expecting that they have the whole story are like those jurors who focus only on the dreamy defense lawyer, and not the stern prosecutor, or the other way around.

The media used to care some for “objectivity” but they threw it out, just as Althouse rejects the possibility of dispassionate and rational thought. Both are an impediment to empowering the id, no spoiled child wants “rules” to get in the way of another bowl of ice cream.

Paul Zrimsek said...

I'm not sure what "sinking to Trump's level" means in this context. Has any prominent Democrat ever been refused service at a Trump property?

Quayle said...

The media wants you to believe they are fact deciders.
In a democracy they are only fact asserters.
The voters are the fact deciders.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Off topic, but, this could be the background noise. The theme song to it all.

said the millionaire.

gilbar said...

Out: Civil Disobedience
In: Obedient Incivility

Meade brings it home! ( i wanted a cool gardening metaphor; but i couldn't get past 'hitting pay dirt', which has nothing to do with gardening :( )

MayBee said...

“I have a great deal of respect for Michelle Obama but I think 2016 showed us that ‘When they go low, we go high,’

Hahahahaha! That was the most self-delusional mantra, ever. Ridiculous.

mesquito said...

I thought civility became the highest value after Sarah Palin caused Gabbie Giffords to be shot in the head.

Leland said...

Progressives claim to be peaceful, but there is no actual history of it. When in power, they rule by might, and when out of power, they fight to get it back. Trump beat them out of power. They aren't going to just let that stay the status quo. Civility is simply a tool to carry out perfidy.

tim in vermont said...

Be Impeccable With Your Words

That’s hard, it takes training, exercise of the skill, and a clear and open mind. That’s like saying “How do I be a better basketball player? Win a championship!”


”Denying a senior administration official a meal is perfectly legal in Virginia."

Is it? Doesn’t the Civil Rights Act of 1964 cover “creed” as well?

Guarantees and protections designed to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, natl. origin, age and gender from both private AND public, govt. institutions

I don’t blame her for leaving. I would leave any restaurant where it became clear I wasn’t welcome. Before I ate a bite of the food, but I am not sure that it was PERFECTLY legal.

Quayle said...

"I'm not sure what "sinking to Trump's level" means"

It's the low level of mashing he functions of the comedian and serious politician into one person.

Heretofore the Dems have kept those function separated. The comedian scorched the opposition with derision and joke, and the politician maintained a sense of equanimity and moral seriousness.

Trump is more efficient. He plays both the comedian and the politician. That's beyond the pale. Unacceptable.

(But you can't really call him Hitler. The fuhrer never used the 'man' word.)

Fabi said...

"No one who uses the phrase "white supremacy" to describe modern America deserves to be listened to."

+1

#walkaway

tim in vermont said...

Here are a bunch of sentences that Oxford Living Dictionary gives us for “creed”

‘Surely there must be more subtle and effective ways to win people over to your political creed.’
‘Their whole creed in politics, is that it is okay as long as you don't get caught.’
‘It remains a uniting force for people of diverse opinions and political creeds.’
‘What have been the features of this creed that has dominated political life?’
‘He knew that absolute creeds, whatever their ideal, cannot be reconciled with differing outlooks.’
‘These are voices that represent all world views and political creeds.’
‘This is as dutiful and strong-willed a creed as any Victorian moralist could hope for.’
‘No ideology, creed or policy yet devised has ever stopped people trying to do the best for their children at a purely individual level.’
‘This chosen nation myth has been the oldest and most continuous creed in American civil religion.’
‘Meritocracy really has fallen by the wayside, as a fashionable political creed.’
‘I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement.’


I don’t see how Sanders wasn’t denied a public accommodation for her “creed.” But the most important thing to do is not see the connection with baking the cake.

Anonymous said...

sykes1: The socialists coming to power in the Democrat Party are also virulent anti-Semites and anti-White racists. Whites and Jews, at least those who are "woke," will be driven into the Republican Party to defend their lives and property and their children.

There are ordinary left-leaning whites (Jew and gentile) who are just a bit slow on the uptake, and are finally getting "woke" as the crazy can no longer be rationalized away. They should be welcomed as allies, no hard feelings.

Then there are the prog whites who have been enthusiastically pushing identity politics and a nasty anti-white ideology as a path to power. This group includes Jews and gentiles who were happy to overlook the anti-Semitism and anti-white racism of their "base" because they were too busy getting their hate-on for what they see as their real enemy, the deplorables. They should be laughed at as they are voted out of office by their "allies", and pushed back into the burning building.

Phil 314 said...

“perhaps LGBT employees at a restaurant in Virginia are bludgeoned into silence by the constant cry for civility, made to hold still as injustices are visited upon theme”

But there were no injustices visited upon them.

Phil 314 said...

And does the author have no sense of historical irony. The “LGBT employees at a restaurant in Virginia” declared “we don’t serve your kind here.”

Caldwell P. Titcomb IV said...

I'm marginalized, too, Vann R. Newkirk II!

Michael K said...

Trump's Inauguration speech was asking for civility and cooperation.

What he got was riots. It is a lie that they are "sinking to TRump's level." They passed that January 21 2017.

Caldwell P. Titcomb IV said...

deep white supremacy black woman uncomfortable 'uncivil'

Uncivil marginalized black woman has some Chinese for lunch.

"We are not opening today because of some reasons."

Fabi said...

According to a YouGov poll, half the democrats think the treatment of Sarah Sanders by the Red Hen was "fair".

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

MLK, Jr. got a lot of things very, very right, but his take on rioting is not one of them. I spent a decade-plus living in and around Berkeley, and in my experience "the voice of the unheard" was generally clamoring for consumer electronics and new clothing. (One Burger King worker to another, on the day of the Rodney King verdict: "Ooooooh, I hope they hit The Gap! There's a lot of stuff I want out of there.") Every business on Southside had its own custom-fitted plywood sheets, to cover the windows against The Forces Of Good. Campus itself went basically unharmed apart from graffiti (when are the Revolution Books folks ever going to learn to spell "prairie," as in "prairie fire"?), apart from the ASUC Store, which of course always had things thrown through the windows. Symbols of actual authority, like department buildings, were naturally left alone. What could you want to steal from there?

Ann, I do not think that "civility is always bullshit." And here I am not talking about rioting, but other stuff. Like swinging around an image of your President's severed head, for example. (Not that there weren't precedents. Remember the professional photographer who doctored up her images of John McCain so that he looked like a vampire? Or the AIDS activists who showed Reagan covered in lesions, as though he'd personally invented Kaposi's sarcoma and unleashed it on unsuspecting SF bathhouses?) Calling the First Lady a "cunt." Yelling "Fuck Trump!" over and over again.

Oh, and that latest NYT Op-Ed about how uncultured Trump is. Once again we learn how much newfound respect flows a Republican's way once he's out of office. Suddenly GWB is a great reader and a painter (albeit, sadly, "figurative") and the Reagans were fantastic patrons of the arts. Which they were, of course; Our First Black President, WJC, stuck mainly to saxophone, and Our Second Black President to hip-hop, when he wasn't sending the befuddled Prime Minister of England 50 random DVDs coded for US-only use in response to his gift of a sliver of wood from the Amistad. But I digress...

But to Bret Stephens, it's all "music," and if you dislike any of it you're a philistine. Except for Ted Nugent, naturally. Him you can dislike, though I'll take him, as musician, over Jay-Z and Beyonce and the cast of "Hamilton."

What I want to say is merely that the "coarseness" that puts off George Will and Bill Kristol and the like is at least as much generated in response to Trump as generated by him.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Fabi,

You remind me: "No Justice, No Sleep"? Sleep deprivation is a recognized torture technique. Doxxing is a recognized POS behavior. (No, it doesn't stand for "point of sale.") But I suppose we could "civilly" tuck Barron in with his pedophile cellmate. Because people were totally talking in these exact terms about Sasha and Malia.

rhhardin said...

No justice, no peach.

rhhardin said...

You can commit an outrage, but not an umbrage.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Oh, sorry! It wasn't Bret Stephens. It was Dave Eggers. My bad!

William said...

I'm not sure how to spell his name. XXXTentacion, I think. Anyway, he's the rapper who was recently murdered during a robbery. Prior to that, there was an attempt to ban him from Spotify. His offense? He laid a barbecue fork against the inner thigh of his girlfriend and threatened to push it up her vagina and rip her insides out. This was a credible threat because he had assaulted her in the past.......Fellow rappers and First Amendment purists rallied to his defense, and he was not banned from Spotify........ Any attempt to equate his case with that of Roseanne or Beethoven just demonstrates the unconscious racism of the person making such a case.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

They think that their side can dispense with civility, and they don't like being told to stand down by people who are supposed to be their allies.

Exactly. They think there is no down-side to their dispensing with civility. However, history would seem to counsel otherwise. The left dispensed with civility in the 60s, and Nixon got elected. Not really a conservative, but close enough for the time. And then, eventually, Reagan was elected. Overwhelming numbers of people support Trump's policies in regard to the border. Calling 70% of the population racists because they oppose open borders is not going to win them over. The Democrat party is being taken over by far left radicals while the Republican is actually moving to the center under Trump. Interesting times.

Dude1394 said...

If you do not have a “racist bullshit” tag you need one. Same dynamic at play.

MayBee said...

tim in Vermont:
That’s hard, it takes training, exercise of the skill, and a clear and open mind.

It is and it does. It is a goal and not a tool. But it is also a tool, if your goal is to create a better life for yourself and for others.

Michael K said...

I spent a decade-plus living in and around Berkeley, and in my experience "the voice of the unheard" was generally clamoring for consumer electronics and new clothing. (One Burger King worker to another, on the day of the Rodney King verdict: "Ooooooh, I hope they hit The Gap! There's a lot of stuff I want out of there.")

You remind me of my niece who was living in Hollywood when the Rodney King thing went down. I called her to see if she was OK. She said that some guys had come into her apartment building a few minutes earlier and announced they were going to burn down the furniture store next door.

They told the residents, "If you want anything be outside the store in half an hour."

rcocean said...

Its always the Left, with their "just win baby" approach that does this.

Its always "Issue X, Situation Y, is too important for [insert one of the following: civility, playing by the rules, respecting tradition, following the Constitution]

If they think the situation is REALLY important, then they'll come us with some big EXCEPTION to some Grand principle they supposedly believe in, like:

-obeying the law
-pacifism
-Democracy
-telling the truth
-feminism
-peaceful political change


William said...

There's difference between chanting "Lock her up" at a campaign rally and surrounding her in a restaurant and voicing the same chant. Is that so difficult to parse?

Earnest Prole said...

Good. Now do Germany 1933 and explain how calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings were civility bullshit, because always.

MadisonMan said...

So, "When they go low, we go high" doesn't work.

I suspect that "When they go low, we go lower" won't work either.

Democratic Party flailing in the time of Trump.

damikesc said...

If your protest causes me issues, then fuck your protest. It seems my complaints are not allowed under these civility rules.

Michael K said...

Speaking of chanting.

That was during finals and guess who were studying and who was not studying ?

tim in vermont said...

Good. Now do Germany 1933 and explain how calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings were civility bullshit, because always.

Once again Earnest Prole is right, people. It’s exactly like Nazi Germany here today, and every statement should be compared against all time, from the Epic of Gilgamesh right through until today, because reasons!

n.n said...

Its always the Left, with their "just win baby" approach that does this.

anti-war
pro-human rights
equality
anti-torture
affordable
choice
scientific (i.e. observable, reproducible, deductive)

secular... everyone has their faith (e.g. twilight or conflation of logical domains), religious/moral philosophy or behavioral protocol, and traditions

and, of course, the semantic games, the euphemisms galore.

Does a Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, congruent, religious/moral philosophy automatically grant them immunity from bigotry (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrisy)?

They still need the lies of omission, commission, and obfuscation reported by the press, and indoctrinated in public schools, in order to sustain the illusion.

tim in vermont said...

“It’s not over until we win.” Didn’t some Wisconsin Democrat say that? Who knew the the failed model of Wisconsin election rejection was going to go nationwide?

tim in vermont said...

On the other hand, it. did manage to turn Wisconsin red.

n.n said...

Good. Now do Germany 1933 and explain how calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings were civility bullshit, because always.

Jew privilege. Today, White privilege, Asian privilege, too.

Jews, blacks, tansgenders, Germans, too. The Nazis had their "identity" politics.

Michael K said...

A pretty good explanation of the "Reistance" delusion.

In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote the classic psychological study, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. He observed: “We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion and run after it.”

That is what's going on now with the fools.

MadTownGuy said...

Incivility =/= harassment.
Saw this on a relative's Facebook timeline.
John Pavlovitz - Dear Trump-supporting Friend...

tim in vermont said...

According to a YouGov poll, half the democrats think the treatment of Sarah Sanders by the Red Hen was “fair".

That’s a serious problem for them then, because half don’t, which means that the number of independents who think it was a scary exercise in rejection of democracy is way higher, and it only energizes Republicans.

Earnest Prole said...

Once again Earnest Prole is right, people. It’s exactly like Nazi Germany here today, and every statement should be compared against all time, from the Epic of Gilgamesh right through until today, because reasons!

To spell it out for the cognitively impaired, I'm in the anti-always faction, because civilization.

Original Mike said...

“It’s not over until we win.” Didn’t some Wisconsin Democrat say that?“

Russ Feingold

MayBee said...

Good. Now do Germany 1933 and explain how calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings were civility bullshit, because always.

Do you think kicking someone out of a restaurant or hounding them out of a restaurant or chasing them out of a movie theater is treating someone like a human being?
The point is, definitely treating someone horribly because you can't handle discussing ideas you disagree with isn't spreading civility. It isn't spreading the love you claim to be acting in the name of.

Earnest Prole said...

Next explain how freedom of speech is always civility bullshit.

MayBee said...

When California was discussing proposition 8, the ads for gay marriage were almost all full of hate themselves. They were anti-mormon definitely. They talked about how awful people who are against gay marriage are. For a few years after, there was the whole "No H8" campaign because if you were against gay marriage you were a hatey hatey homophobe. At that time, I told anyone who would listen to make it about *love*. And they did. The H8 campaign went away and the "love is love" and "love wins" campaigns came. And marriage for gay people came into being and people pretty much accept that. Yeah, there are still the agitators, but the average person in America isn't out there hating on gay marriage. Because the focus changed to kindness.

Incivility doesn't work in the long run, because good people don't deserve to be treated like haters, and they know it.

Fabi said...

Michelle -- I can't discern who or what will bring the left back to reality, let alone decency. They're rudderless -- no leader, no message other than hate.

Bruce Hayden said...

@Mike Sylwester - we had two books that essentially defined our college existence (I am several months older than Ann, and maybe two of you): "The Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris and The Moynihan Report ("The Negro Family: The Case For National Action", written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Moynihan was worried about the breakdown of the Black family, when the illegitimacy rate for blacks was 1/4. Today, it is 3x that (3/4). My point here is to ask where the country would be if the left, including LBJ and MLK, had taken Moynihan more seriously than they took Harrington. The problem is that Harrington corollary is that society can buy its way out of the problems outlined by Harrington by essentially giving underprivileged communities money and other things. One problem there though is that that means that society, through government, ends up subsidizing bad behavior, the most obvious being having and raising kids out of wedlock. Another, more recent one, was the Dems trying to buy the underclass out of their negative lifestyles by turning them into home owners, through the CRA and junk (subprime) mortgage loans, since the middle class were homeowners and lived more positive lifestyles. And, of course, the insanity of that brain dead policy was the housing bust that helped trigger the Obama Recession. In any case, it can be argued that the Dems reading Harrington 50 years ago is a big part of why so many lower class black urban communities have violence rates above those of some of the war zones we are fighting in, while the sane, more traditional, parts of this country have almost no violence. You also mention that they were looking at Harrington as a counter to Ayn Rand. Think how much better this country would be, in terms of black poverty and violence if they had accepted Rand, instead of Harrington.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Democrat party members should be executed. Democrat party politicians need to be hung in public. Democrat party media outlets should be overrun by mobs of MAGA hat wearing Americans and burnt to the ground, their propagandists torn to pieces. I would like to see mobs of MAGA taking over Los Angeles, swarming Mulholland Drive and dragging pieces of shit like DeNiro and Streep out of their mansions and dragged to the CNN building on Sunset boulevard to be tossed into the flames of that burning building. After that we kill the cucks. Democrat party members begging futilely for their lives, that is the only thing I want to hear from them. Besides the death rattle.

Jupiter said...

Earnest Prole said...

"To spell it out for the cognitively impaired, I'm in the anti-always faction, because civilization."

If you want to demonstrate that "calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings" were not civility bullshit, you need to find someone who made such calls, and based them upon the societal value of civility. Then you need to demonstrate that they were, in fact, acting out of concern for civility, and not some other motivation.

Henry said...

Is there anything in any of these articles about the difference between targeting individuals with your high-minded incivility and targeting institutions?

Jupiter said...

The Left is eager to open the box marked "incivility" because they believe it contains a weapon they can use and their opponents cannot. And I fear they are correct, because we have more to lose than they do, and are more likely to lose it by acting obnoxious in public. It would be nice to think that if they push it too far, someone will shoot a few of them. But they've already figured that in, they're willing to take a few casualties. They didn't get to where they are by worrying about consequences.

Of course, where they are, is on the bottom, looking up. I won't be spitting in anyone's food at my job.

Fabi said...

Trump has driven the left insane because he's the first Republican president to engage the left in the culture wars. The left has owned this turf for my entire forty-something years on the planet. George "Thousand points of light" and George "Religion of peace" Bush were no help at all -- and you see where that got us. Trump's brilliant use of Twitter has also bypassed the media's progressive firewall, further bringing them to their knees.

When normal Americans are bombarded in every medium with slurs of Nazi, racist, deplorable, homophobe, sexist, bible thumper, gun nut -- the dam eventually breaks. That game is over. I really, really, really don't care what they say anymore. The left has no currency, no traction, and no power.

YoungHegelian said...

A riot is the language of the unheard,” King famously said in his “The Other America” speech....

Actually a riot is the howl of the unheard as they shoot themselves in the foot.

There are large tranches of DC real estate that didn't recover from the '68 riots until the late 1990's. Thirty years of some impressive real estate lying fallow (e.g. the 14th St NW Corridor). Think about how much investment money & tax revenue was lost to the residents of the District through those thirty years, & how that could have helped the residents, both black & white, of DC.

Jupiter said...

Henry said...
"Is there anything in any of these articles about the difference between targeting individuals with your high-minded incivility and targeting institutions?"

This all comes from the Alinsky Rules. He recognized that individuals are vulnerable in ways that institutions are not, and vice versa. And he determined with precision how those vulnerabilities could be exploited with the resources he and his allies possessed. What he probably did not consider was the possibility of a tipping point, where you become so successful that you no longer receive sympathy as an underdog. He planned to cross that bridge when he came to it.

Sheridan said...

We've been here before. "Bleeding Kansas" 1854 - 1861. One of the darkest periods of American history. And an existential crisis, which our society has either forgotten or has never learned. One hundred sixty-four years ago the flashpoint was human slavery and the nexus was Kansas. Civility bullshit was operating back then, too. If oppression and domination of one race by another led to the Civil War won't the oppression and domination of multiple cultures and ideologies by other multiple cultures and ideologies potentially lead to a similar outcome? People have no frakkin idea of what a civil war entails. It's not a movie with a heroic ending, all plot lines wrapped-up in two hours. It's simple murder and unrequited justice.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

from breaking the glass ceiling to Kristallnacht

Earnest Prole said...

The civility bullshit argument was common in critical legal studies, a left-wing theory popular in law schools in the 1980s. It held that civility and freedom of speech have no intrinsic value to society and instead exist to disguise naked power relationships that oppress the powerless.

langford peel said...

The only way to communicate is to break into the CVS and steal Pampers, beer and everything in the Pharmacy.

That sends a message.

From monkeys.

langford peel said...

The last time the left really dispensed with civility....a huge group of construction workers gathered together to beat the shit out of them. Those were union workers. Working class guys who beat the living shit out of hippies and drug addled college students.

People who forget the lessons of history are bound to repeat them.

Jupiter said...

Well, Earnest, you have made considerable progress. A little while ago, you thought that including the word "Nazi" in the statement in which you made your claim would inevitably produce a convincing argument. You have now moved on, to citing the provenance of the idea of "civility bullshit". But I'm afraid you still haven't really put any very serious dent in Althouse' claim, which is that calls for civility are always bullshit. I think she would probably define it a bit less expansively, perhaps confining it to politics.

It may well be that she imbibed this notion from some crit-legal prof, but so what? The fact is, it is a clever claim, because it impugns motives. To rebut it, you are forced to assert the sincerity of -- Someone. And that is always a faintly, or glaringly, ridiculous activity.

Bruce Hayden said...

I go back and forth with the ideas that the left here don’t see their hypocrisy that is so evident to so much of the country, and that they are so certain of their moral superiority that they owe no duty of civility to the rest of the country. One thing is clear though, and that is that they don’t take the Golden Rule to heart. Whether they know it and understand it is more problematic - and that may be a direct result of their abandonment of traditional religio I their lives.

The left seems to feel themselves somehow entitled to violate societal norms, and engage in rank hypocrisy when it comes to civility. And, so far, it seems to be working. They are getting away with it. Part of it may be that they are the party of Have Nots, with less to lose with a societal breakdown. Except, no matter how much many of them try to identify with the Have Nots, they are really part of the Haves, and really Have Lots. So, what happens to the pussy hatted family who threw the Sanders family out of their restaurant? What about their LGBTxyz and POC employees who voted for the expulsion? Will Nancy Pelosi or George Soros remember their sacrifice, and use some of their millions to help them survive? Or are they just part of the Useful Idiots who form the bulk of the troops on the left?

Bruce Hayden said...

Part of why this can’t go on is that there has been a major demographic shift in political allegiances. Traditionally, the Republicans represented more the middle, and esp the upper middle classes, while the Democrats represented more the working (and not working) classes. But the Republican appeal, esp with Trump has moved a bit down market. And the top of the upper middle class seems to have shifted to the Democrats. And some of it is style, with a number of people who supported the Bushes, even Reagan, were impressed by Obama’s sharp creases and Ivy Leage education, and put off by Trump’s in your face rhetoric. So, traditionally Republicans had much more to lose than Democrats and the left when civility broke down, and the Dems could, and have used for decades, this to their advantage. But now a lot of those lesser advantaged, with less to lose, have shifted their allegiances to Trump. They are much more ready to rumble, and less willing to be quiet in the face of being disrespected. And, meanwhile, a lot on the left, no longer being true members of the disadvantaged, have yet to realize that they are the ones now with much to lose - such as the pussy hatted family who threw the Sanders out of their restaurant. (Just think how pathetic the father and son look to the rest of the country letting themselves be caught in photos wearing pussy hats).

Earnest Prole said...

Althouse’s civility bullshit argument is diametrically opposed to her (supposedly) deeply held belief in freedom of speech as an essential cultural value far richer and more expansive than what is narrowly prescribed by the First Amendment.

langford peel said...

The thing is that animals do not respond to civility. You can not tame a wild dog by being civil. You can not domesticate a rat by being polite. Siegfried thought he could civilize the tiger. How did that work out for him?

There is basically nothing you can do to make a monkey civilized. They might "ape" human norms but there is always a good chance they will revert to their savage state and rip your neighbors face off like that chimp in Connecticut.

There is only one answer. The whip and the chair.

Michael K said...

The left seems to feel themselves somehow entitled to violate societal norms, and engage in rank hypocrisy when it comes to civility. And, so far, it seems to be working.

Have you seen The "Walk Away" video ?

Some 5 million people on Facebook and YouTube have seen the video by now. A very handsome gay man, who you just assume is about to scold you on progressive talking points, instead says this:

“Once upon a time, I was a liberal. Well, to be honest, less than a year ago, I was still a liberal.

“I reject a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and apathetically steamroll over the truth.”

And then this devastating line—the Rosa Parks moment of the video:

“I reject hate.”

If Democratic strategists were still able to watch the rest of the video without suffering a nervous breakdown, they’d see that it quickly got worse.


Interesting. It is said that 5 million people have joined the group.

I'm not sure but what the Dims are on a suicide mission.

langford peel said...

When the fear went out of the interaction with the police you get Baltimore and Chicago. Unlimited illegal immigration. Antifa.

Remove fear of consequences and you get the barbarians to run free. To indulge their democratic impulses. To loot and riot. To maim shoot and kill their fellows.

The President is simply trying to enforce the existing laws and it is driving them crazy.

When you give these animals an inch they want to take it a mile.

The God Emperor is moving it inches forward. The pressure is on to move back a mile.

Achilles said...

Earnest Prole said...

Good. Now do Germany 1933 and explain how calls for Nazis to treat Jews like human beings were civility bullshit, because always.


Prole is right.

It didn't work with the German National Socialists then and it wont work with the Democrat National Socialists now.

Take any of Hitler's speeches and replace Jew with White male.

History repeats.

Except for that whole second amendment thing which they attempted to abolish repeatedly.

Fabi said...

Bruce Hayden's 12:18 PM comment is worth reading twice.

Achilles said...

Earnest Prole said...

Althouse’s civility bullshit argument is diametrically opposed to her (supposedly) deeply held belief in freedom of speech as an essential cultural value far richer and more expansive than what is narrowly prescribed by the First Amendment.


No it is not.

Ann recognizes that you are not going to get fascists to act nice by asking them to.

In the end the Bill of Rights is just a piece of paper. The reason it still has power is because there are rough men ready to do violence to protect it.

It just took Ann a bit longer to figure out who the actual fascists are.

The mask slips a little more every day.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“Democratic Party flailing in the time of Trump.”

Willfully, apparently. They’ve reached a point where the idea seems to be to not win. Which is weird and fascinating in equal measure.

Michael K said...


Part of why this can’t go on is that there has been a major demographic shift in political allegiances. Traditionally, the Republicans represented more the middle, and esp the upper middle classes, while the Democrats represented more the working (and not working) classes. But the Republican appeal, esp with Trump has moved a bit down market. And the top of the upper middle class seems to have shifted to the Democrats.


The first shift was the Democrats signing up the rich techies who moved to the left on cultural issues. I can still remember Eric Schmidt saying he supported Democrats because his wife was prochoice.

Then nerdy kids in tech fields went hard left on cultural issues.

Then the Democrats discovered fund raising from the rich left was easier than unions. Plus, unions were declining except the public employee unions which they put in charge of states like California.

The trouble is that Democrats, which used to have guys like Tip O'Neill who knew about real things like work, went the whole Socialist thing because their teachers unions and SEIU went Socialist and the rich techies didn't care because they were making more money than ever.

Now, the poor who used to be Democrats are realizing that they are worse off and the Democrats don't care. Nancy Pelosi is powerful because she has connections with the San Francisco rich left.

The Democrats now are about fund raising. Governing is so dull. Better to hob nob with Hollywood stars like Clooney that gush over them.

It reminds me of Versailles in 1789;

Tommy Duncan said...

The Democrat Party has become an alliance of identity groups. It follows that they have made diversity their central theme, where the various identity groups take turns being angry, offended and outraged victims. Since the primary purpose of their existence is being outraged, it is not surprising that their behavior lacks civility.

In order to satisfy their constituent base, the Democrats have made a deal with the angry and outraged devil of diversity. On the plus side for them: They no longer need to run for office on policy issues. Raw emotion is sufficient.

langford peel said...

Is it true that there are photos and videos of Kamala Harris in orgies when she was an up and coming whore and banging Willie Brown to get ahead?

langford peel said...

That's some real civility for you there let me tell you!

tcrosse said...

I would hire Joe Pesci to be the White House Civility Spokesman.

Jupiter said...

Earnest Prole said...
"Althouse’s civility bullshit argument is diametrically opposed to her (supposedly) deeply held belief in freedom of speech as an essential cultural value far richer and more expansive than what is narrowly prescribed by the First Amendment."

Better. But there is no particular conflict between Althouse deeply holding a belief and Althouse believing that politicians don't share that belief, or don't act upon it. "civility bullshit" is not an "argument", it is a factual claim, about the behavior of a certain class of humans, and what motivates that behavior. Attempting to prove or disprove it inevitably drags you off into the weeds.

I don't think you even have Althouse' attention yet. She's letting one of the TAs deal with you.

Jim at said...

We're going to reward our friends and punish our enemies. - Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.
I want you to get in their faces. - Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.
If they bring a knife, we bring a gun. - Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.
I want you to punch back twice as hard. - Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.

The left can take its demands for civility and shove it.

To this point, we have been civil. You'd better pray it stays that way.

Earnest Prole said...

Althouse/s civility bullshit theory has a long intellectual pedigree, most famously the postmodernist Stanley Fish on the op-ed page of the New York Times. I encourage commenters to poke around his essays and decide if his ideas on civility and free speech are really the best way to organize a society.

But if that seems like work, here’s a more enjoyable way to test the theory: dial up youtube video of Roger Stone or Anthony Scaramucci speaking at Oxford Union and compare it to Berkeley’s reception of Milo Yiannopoulos. Althouse thinks its bullshit to say you prefer Oxford’s civility culture to Berkeley’s.

Darkisland said...

Love Trump's hate.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

For the lawyers here:

Say I am in a restaurant eating my waffle and a gang of fascists comes in chanting and distupting. As happened to Chao.

The restaurant appears to be complicit by letting it go on for moore than 10 minutes. As happened to Chao.

I feel threatened since fascists seem to often engage in violence. I don't want to get hurt.

I walk out without paying.

Can the restaurant sue me? Am I obligated to pay?

John Henry

Darkisland said...

The Red Hen in Lexington is closed til July 5.

I wonder if it will reopen ever? Under current ownership, anyway.

I hope the employees enjoy their virtue stew and signalling soup while unemployed.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

Ingachucketc,

Interesting comment about krystalnacht and glass ceilings.

Makes me wonder if Crooked Hillary and her fascist pals were really expecting a krystalnacht on election night?

Rather than the breaking glass ceiling they discussed im public

John Henry

Bruce Hayden said...

@John Henry - almost what we call constructive eviction, where the conditions of a rental property become so bad that a reasonable person couldn’t continue to live there. Actually almost experienced it a bit over a decade ago. Went to work for a firm in NW NV. Interviewed when they were in one location, and showed up for work and they had moved a couple doos down. Turned out the ceiling collapsed in the filing room due to mold. Boss got a lease in the new place. Old landlord said “wait a minute, you have 3 years left on your lease”. Threatened to sue. Boss asked “you are going to sue a law firm?”, given how dangerous it is known to be to live around mold like that. And, yes, the formal excuse for moving out three years early was constructive eviction. Five years later when the office was merged with the Reno office, the owner of that building had still not mitigated the mold, nor had he rerented the office space. And, yes, as owners of a number of rental units, we are very zealous about any hint of mold.

But if constructive eviction is the defense asserted, or something similar, merely an uncomfortable environment would likely be insufficient. I think that you would need to show actual danger, etc.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The Red Hen in Lexington is closed til July 5.

I wonder if it will reopen ever? Under current ownership, anyway.

I hope the employees enjoy their virtue stew and signalling soup while unemployed.”

The employees don’t really have much skin in the game. They will be fine. It is the pussy hatted family that owns and runs the restaurant that is likely to lose their lives’ savings here. Economically, they could probably survive this, if their business were in deep blue Crooked Hillary country. Maybe even profit a bit from it. But they apparently don’t. Frankly, I expect them to try to reopen, not understanding business well enough (as evidenced by them telling a large segment of their local community market FU in a fit of virtue signaling), and then discovering over the next year or so that they had screwed up royally, as they go out of business and lose their restaurant, and likely, lives’ savings. Which would put them on the other side of the skin game, with no reason not to wear their pussy hats proudly as they join the rest of the unemployed losers in the Resistance.

Not Sure said...

Actual civility left the building a few decades ago. A call for "civility" now is just a civil way of saying "Stop sounding crazy!"

Bruce Hayden said...

Ok, I have gone a little overboard on the pussy hats. But the photo of the entire family owning the Red Hen struck me as ridiculous. You had a husband and adult, or almost adult, son wearing a female body part on their heads. Do they have any idea of how ignorant and clueless they appear in their virtue signaling to the rest of their community? I think that is fine that the wife/mother in the photo is wearing such a hat, since she most likely has a vagina (and, more accurately, thereabouts). Ditto for Inga. But these are supposed to be guys. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. It is times like this that my sympathy is strained. They really seem to deserve: “Get Woke, Go Broke”.

Bilwick said...

"Civility" = not contradicting the "liberal" Hive's party line. (Translated from Newspeak BS to plain English.)

Darkisland said...

The employees have skin in the game to the extent they seem to ne losing 10 days wages and tips. They may not be able to find temporary work til july 5.

Since it was their idea to call the owner and have the party thrown out, the time-out seems like karma to me.

If the restaurant folds, they'll be OK with jobs easy to find. Maybe even better jobs. Lots of industry in that area, probably hiring.

Since ease of finding new jobs can be laid ay President Trumps door, double shot of karma.

I wonder if they'll be properly appreciative. Somehow I doubt it.

Agree completely about the owners. Triple karma.

I suspect it will take less than a year though.

John Henry

rhhardin said...

Althouse on civility bullshit is a sensitivity to being played. It's persuasive to her and then she rejects it, having detected being played.

Extend that to other woman-focussed issues.

The automatic bullshit detection applies only to large systems, not for example neighborboods, where it might not be bullshit, or it still might. You have to look.

rhhardin said...

Civil is said of inferiors. Courteous is for equals or superiors.

rhhardin said...

Nobody's calling for courtesy.

Big Mike said...

@Bruce Hayden, I found that picture. IMAO any men caught wearing pink pussy hats need to be taken to a reeducation camp where they can get testosterone injections and learn how to be a man.

Big Mike said...

I have to agree with Jim at in his comment at 12:59.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Would you finally just put a sock in it about this? So you have problems calling out a barbaric president and don't like the fact that some people value civility/decency and see it as a precondition to civilization, whether you think they exercise it sincerely themselves or not. So what. Move on to the next topic. NEXT!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That's what my tag "civility bullshit" means: Calls for civility are always bullshit, because the real motivation is political advantage.

True. That's what Hitler said when responding to calls that his invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland and other countries were too indelicate.

You have really flown the coop. It's possible to find someone's behavior contemptible regardless of how or why or what it is. They call it "civility" for a reason. Look up the etymology... civilization. Just because you think anything goes as long as it's in the furtherance of politics doesn't mean that the non-barbarians have to agree. Take a chill pill and stop insisting that amorality in whatever political or non-political behavior is a given.

Original Mike said...

” I found that picture. IMAO any men caught wearing pink pussy hats need to be taken to a reeducation camp where they can get testosterone injections and learn how to be a man.”

I felt sorry for the son.

Michael K said...

"Do they have any idea of how ignorant and clueless they appear"

Speaking of ignorant and clueless, Ritmo woke up.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Ritmo woke up.

It's not like your wife and daughters can keep me sedately sexually satisfied all afternoon or anything, Special K.

One of these days you'll learn to stop fucking with me.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What Trump exercises is the art of outrage bullshit.

And Althouse and his other followers lap it up.

AZ Bob said...

There's been a lot of acrimony on both sides. And if you want to blame someone, blame the other side.

Ann Althouse said...

“Althouse’s civility bullshit argument is diametrically opposed to her (supposedly) deeply held belief in freedom of speech as an essential cultural value far richer and more expansive than what is narrowly prescribed by the First Amendment.”

How so? I can’t even picture what argument you have. How about stating it clearly so I will have a shot at showing you what you’ve misread or misanalyzed.

Michael K said...

Ritmo, thank you for not shitting on the music thread.

Gahrie said...

“Althouse’s civility bullshit argument is diametrically opposed to her (supposedly) deeply held belief in freedom of speech as an essential cultural value far richer and more expansive than what is narrowly prescribed by the First Amendment.”

Just because you have the right to do something doesn't make it the right thing to do.

rcocean said...

They will be fine. It is the pussy hatted family that owns and runs the restaurant that is likely to lose their lives’ savings here.

I seriously doubt this. Read the family that owned The Red Hen are related o M. Streep.

When are right-center peeps going to stop with the "Oh, those crazy Lefties, they'll be sorry if they keep it up" nonsense?

LOTS of left-wing peeps with PLENTY Of $$$. LOTS of left-wing peeps who don't give a damn about $$$.

You'll be sorry - the lamest attack ever.

wildswan said...

"Denying a senior administration official a meal is perfectly legal in Virginia."

Denying people service at a restaurant in Virginia was a part of segregation. It was abolished - I thought - in the Sixties. The argument was made that a restaurant could be viewed as a sort of social club in which the good feeling would be dissipated if "Negroes" were also eating in the same room. And this argument was - I thought - overthrown by interpretations of what a "public accommodation" i.e. restaurant, was. And, in my opinion, there could be no more dangerous an action than to re-introduce the idea that someone from an unpopular group can be denied service in a restaurant in Virginia if they will harm the ambiance. Not that they will harm the ambiance because they are drunk or dirty but they will harm it because the owner doesn't like their kind. I think that is why the restaurant is closed. I think they committed a crime - but that isn't the point. The point is that Virginia restaurants were desegregated by members of the black community who took on danger to affirm their right to public accommodation. And the Red Hen threw all that aside. Moreover the people the Red Henners hate, Trump supporters, are a majority in their area. So the Red Hen people are stupid as well as bigots as well as without a sense of history as well as rude.

I lived in the area and that place was a destination. No more.

Rick said...

Pee-Pee Tape said...
It's not like your wife and daughters can keep me sedately sexually satisfied all afternoon or anything,


Their not having goat assholes precludes your satisfaction huh?

He's probably not too unhappy about that.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Didn't think about it that way, Rick. But I'm guessing there must be a reason you did.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Rick's very experienced with goats, apparently.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As a half-man half-goat with an orangutan avatar, Rick seems very knowledgable about bestiality.

Michael K said...

It's a waste of time and dangerous to your IQ to respond to Ritmo.

He is an angry young man with no prospects.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

He is an angry young man with no prospects.

Your wife and daughters divulged the secrets I told them in bed.

Achilles said...

President Pee-Pee Tape said...

It's not like your wife and daughters can keep me sedately sexually satisfied all afternoon or anything, Special K.

One of these days you'll learn to stop fucking with me.



You should be happy.

A REAL leftist won the primary in New York. She is totally telegenic.

She grew up rich and has never known a day with anything more than first world problems. Just like most socialists.

She is a proud progressive.

You all should win the house and senate in the midterms easily now. Blue wave right?

But you went straight for fucking someone's wife and daughters as if you are totally deranged. Even though everyone knows it is a lie and it is pretty much the most juvenile and really stupid thing to throw out as a personal attack.

The meltdowns and stupidity are a good sign.

I think you all are coming to grips with the fact you will not be able to win elections anywhere other than corrupt blue cities and you have realized you wont be able to seize it with violence.


Michael K said...

Ritmo is creepy in addition to vulgar and a loser.

Bob Loblaw said...

But Pelosi and Schumer, aged 78 and 67 respectively, seem to have been left behind by liberal activists who believe that there can be no compromise in resisting Trump....

That's because Pelosi and Schumer are professionals and realize this kind of stuff will cost the Democrats seats in Congress. Three months ago they were talking about a blue wave. Now they're trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Maybe one day you'll get a life Achilles and recognize that Michael K's creepy obsession with me is not something that has anything to do with politics, let alone anyone's politics.

As for Special K., he seems to keep offering up his wife and daughters to me but I'm as uninterested in them as everyone is in him. He doesn't seem to recognize how boring he is and how little anyone cares about what he has to say or, worse, what he read. ("Hey Mom, look at what I read! I'm Michael K and I read a book!")

Bravo!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

She grew up rich and has never known a day with anything more than first world problems.

The only way this is not a lie is if the assface who said it actually thinks that having a father die in one's adolescence and helping a mom who cleaned houses is a sign of wealth. Surely she can't be as poor as working class-enemy Don Trump, who lost a federal suit trying to enforce housing discrimination to throw blacks out of housing or withholding payments to contractors.

Anyway, good luck with your newfound status as a class warrior! Such a traditional and credible position for The Party of Wealth and Tax Benefits for The Richest Americans and The Companies They Own.

A trillion dollar annual deficit to make the wealthy wealthier. Say hello to your Chinese creditors for me.

Of course, Achilles is too stupid to address any of this. He just pulls stuff out of his ass like the guy he worships.

What's it like having Trump as your surrogate daddy, Little Boy Achilles? Is he the substitute man that you wish you could be, if you could be a real man?

Steroid-addled junkie trash-talking loser cunt. You follow a guy who would wipe you out and sue you for the effort it took him to do it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Achilles is a real working-class zero.

A working class zero is something to be.

They keep him doped up on Twitter, and guns and FOX state tee-vee.

And he grew up without a real dadd-dee.

He'd respond, but his lips are stuck to Trump's pee pee.

A working class zero is something to be.

A working class zero is something to be.

Achilles aspires one day to achieve literacy.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Of course, Trump's groped 17 women and covered up affairs with porn star Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal but the real shame is how he insists on paying hush money to Achilles so that the secret of their own affair doesn't get let out of the bag.

It's as big a scandal as PizzaGate or the Sandy Hook False Flag conspiracy!

Or the Chobani Tuberculosis fiasco.

Good thing Alex Jones is on the case.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Alex Jones will get to the bottom of the Achilles-Trump Fellatio Affair.

He's got access to top secret intel that no one else has.

The truth is out there, Alex.

Rusty said...

President Pee-Pee Tape said...

" It's not like your wife and daughters can keep me sedately sexually satisfied all afternoon or anything, Special K.

One of these days you'll learn to stop fucking with me."

The rich fantasy life of a boy who lives in his basement and fucks rubber men.
ritmo. Everybody fucks with you. Because it is so easy.