(Don't panic. If you came here to see my deconstruction of the wingnut health care lies, it's right here...)
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I hate to burst some bubbles out there, but I'm generally one of the nicest people you will ever meet, if you should ever meet me. The passion you see in these posts is real. I truly believe this country can do better, and that we, as a people working together, can do anything. But I honestly believe that sometimes requires us to bust some heads, rhetorically speaking. (I'm also non-violent). And I will admit to a few things with which I have little patience, and you'll see that in spades as you read this blog.
You see, I've been confronted with my horrible personality so many times in e-mails and comments the last few days that I'm not sure whether to laugh or laugh harder. So many people take issue with how I refer to certain people, and the ridicule I routinely use to excoriate liars and the terminally stupid, who get way too much face time in our national discourse. Strangely and perhaps sadly, many of the people who take offense are liberals. Stephanie Miller refers to them as "stick up the butt" liberals, and I can't disagree with that term. While I can't and won't speak for her motivations behind the names, I claim a specific strategy behind the way I refer to people. In other words, there really is a method to my madness.
So I've decided to take some time out of my debunking health care lies duties (a new one should be put up here in a day or two) to explain myself, and why I say some of the things I do.
I've been doing this a long time -- probably about 25 years -- and in that time, I have seen our discourse turn to crap. Do you remember the concept of "loyal opposition"? I do. And since the neocon takeover in 1980, it's pretty much gone bye bye. One of the reasons it's gone bye bye has largely been the left's fault; especially the types of leftists who object to my references to Sarah Palin as "Caribou Barbie," and my countless negative references to "Mann Coulter."
One of the reasons the neocons were able to gain such a foothold in this country was because so many liberals choose to tilt at windmills, rather than participate in the process in order to make progress. We're progressives, folks; at some point, we have to make progress, and that requires getting as many people as possible on our side. I'll get into this more in a later post, but idealism only goes so far. Yeah, in a perfect world, it would be nice if everyone argued with the facts, and if everyone was nice and polite and respectful. But that's not the real world. There are evil people out there, and I aim to expose them for what they are. Anyone who says that the current health care bill will lead to "death panels" is a liar and an idiot, and deserves to be called out for it. The American public deserves to know that the people telling them this crap are liars, and we cannot allow them to be taken seriously.They have to become a national joke, and that can't happen if we give them respect. They don't deserve it.
You will notice, if you read this blog long enough, that only select people are called names. I don't call real conservatives names; just right wingers. One of the reasons the debate has turned to crap over the years is because people on the left treat the garbage coming from idiots like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Michelle Malkin with the same deference as the statements made by true conservatives. For example, though I disagree with them on most things, I have a lot of respect for people like PJ O'Rourke, George Will and Orrin Hatch. I always had respect for Ron Silver, God rest his soul, even when he went a little crazy after 9/11, and I respected William F Buckley, as well. One of my favorite people in the world is Jim Wallis, who is a conservative who actually seems to believe in God as something other than a political tool The reason I respect them is because, though I disagree with them on most things, they engage(d) in honest debate. You will never see me badmouth a real conservative because of an honest difference of opinion; but I despise liars and charlatans; especially those who prey upon the dimwitted, because they know they're gullible , and will parrot their bullshit as if it's real and fact-based, which it most certainly is not.
In my view, attempting to engage in nice cordial debate with such people is an insult to true conservatives. In fact, it's worse, because it elevates these morons to a level they don't deserve. You don't think it's an insult to conservative thinkers (and there are many, although they are increasingly drowned out) to equate them with the vile Ann Coulter, or the bald-faced liar Sean Hannity? There are always multiple ways to look at any issue, folks, but there is only one set of facts, and these people try to drown those facts in a pool of lies. When we treat their lies as "just wrong," we give them more credibility than they deserve. There is no way to deal nicely with liars who have captive audiences in the millions; you have to not only debunk the lies, you have to discredit them.That doesn't mean adopting their tactics, of course; you don't fight lies with more lies. You fight lies with the truth, and the fact that they're liars is the truth.
And there's another reason I refuse -- that's right, I refuse -- to be civil with people like this. Check out the news for a clue, folks. When people like this are allowed to call themselves "conservative," and are given an undeserved level of deference, they end up getting equal time on the news. You have moderates and liberals spouting facts, while that ubiquitous seer of everything, "Sumsay" gets to say whatever her or she wants, whether it's true or not.
This blog is about cutting the crap. As you can tell from the title, this is not an academic blog, where I dissect history, and propagate political theory. This is about the real world, and calling people out who deserve it. At its heart, this blog is about facts. But it's not just a fact that the health care bills currently before Congress does not create a "death panel" that would euthanize old people; it's also a fact that the person who wrote about that on her Facebook page is an idiot, because she knew better and wrote it anyway.
I will always be polite to people who seriously wish to discuss differences they see with anything I discuss on here. But Sarah Palin will remain "Caribou Barbie" until she decides to get serious about policy and stop lying. Rush Limbaugh will remain a "Drug-addled gasbag" and a dozen other names, until he decides to stop lying and stops referring to everyone who disagrees with him as "Nazis." Pat Robertson, James Dobson and their ilk will remain "pseudo-Christians" until their rhetoric at least resembles something that Jesus actually said according to the New Testament that they claim to have read. (And yes, I have read it; every word. Jesus was a liberal, folks.)
One of the recurring themes of this blog (in addition to bringing the truth to the masses) has to with helping true conservatives take back the name, and stop allowing these radical morons to continue to get away with calling themselves conservative, when they are anything but.
If we're going to take back this country, we have to do it honestly, which means we have to call these people what they are. We must differentiate between people who have honest disagreements with us from those who lie and demagogue. It's okay to call a lie a lie. We have to call liars liars. We have to call idiots idiots. And we have to call the gullible morons who repeat this crap gullible morons. If we have any respect at all for the "loyal opposition," we must make sure the average person can differentiate between them and the liars on the far right.That means creating a very wide, thick line between them.
As you can see from my posts, I put a very high premium on facts. And it is a fact that Hannity, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, et al, are evil, lying idiots, who are attempting to muddy the debate. They have no intention of ever actually debating anyone, and they prey upon gullible people who are too dim-witted to realize they're actually working against their own interests. They are childish and stupid, and their followers are childish and stupid. There's no other way to put it.
I'm just calling them as I see them. Sorry if that offends some folks, but I find what they do far more offensive, mainly because it's so damned deadly.
