Fight amongst Yourselves

bobonthebellbuoy
#1. July 19th, 2008, at 12:53 AM.

My my…the commie mommys have their panties in a twist. Can’t we all just get along?

Peter
#2. July 19th, 2008, at 2:55 AM.

Yes, family feuds are the worst, aren’t they? The good doctor is trying valiantly to get a serious dinner disussion going on what “progressive” means today, but most of his guests just want to throw buns at one another. What is interesting is what trigger points the words racist and fascist are when they, who hurl them willy-nilly at us twenty times a day before breakfast, aim them at one another. KAPOW!!! It’s like lobbing grenades and proves to me the words are not really descriptive of anything for them. They simply serve to disenfranchise, banish and relieve one of any responsibility to defend what he/she is saying.

They aren’t alone in this though. I’ve had this experience here on your site when I deigned to suggest the absolutist libertarian position on free speech had certain problems that needed to be thought through. For my pains I was summarily dismissed as a liberal. Hey, I can take racist or fascist, but liberal? Man, did that hurt!

Blazingcatfur
#3. July 19th, 2008, at 5:06 AM.

Well at least he resigned and wasn’t kicked out.

Dr.Dawg
#4. July 19th, 2008, at 7:51 AM.

Hey , this isn’t your fight. Do I rag you about Pat Buchanan or other common-or-garden Republicans?

dcardno
#5. July 19th, 2008, at 9:52 AM.

You did more than “suggest it had problems,” Peter: you declared that speech you found personally offensive was not worthy of protection. But hey, what’s a little revisionism among friends?

DDT
#6. July 19th, 2008, at 1:05 PM.

Pass the popcorn.

Rod Blaine
#7. July 19th, 2008, at 1:50 PM.

The logical consequence of three decades or so of running away from the hard work of addressing policy arguments on their merits and taking easy refuge in imputing evil motives to people who dare to disagree with you. Compare the “melanin vs ovaries” love-fest in the US Democratic Party a few months ago. All too easy to point the water-cannon at those evil fascists on the Right (You don’t agree with the policy stances of this candidate, who happens to be Black/ female? Then you must hate all Blacks/ women! Racist! Sexist! But it’s okay for us to hate Clarence Thomas. Michael Steele, Phyllis Schlafly or Michelle Malkin because… uh, their policy stances aren’t representative of all Blacks/ Women). Have fun when someone on your side points the water cannon at you, Dr Dawg.

Louise
#8. July 19th, 2008, at 3:57 PM.

Poor Dawg. Desperate situations require desperate stabs in the dark.

Dr.Dawg
#9. July 20th, 2008, at 2:10 AM.

Poor Louise. Late to the party as usual.

Peter
#10. July 20th, 2008, at 2:13 AM.

dcardno:

I may have been having a bad rhetorical hair day, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t suggesting my admittedly priggish sensitivities should be used to define the limits of permitted speech. I was trying to suggest that speech designed simply to incite, inflame and degrade had little to do with political and civic freedom and the right to dissent from orthodoxy, and also that kind of speech blurs the otherwise sharp distinction between speech and action. Also that I doubted very much the public would rally to its defence. But hey, thanks. I MUCH prefer revisionist.

el Ricardo the smooth man
#11. July 20th, 2008, at 8:02 AM.

“We on the Left aren’t like you. We could never be like you. We’re better than you are. Your politics aren’t politics at all; they’re just one fat character flaw.”

dcardno
#12. July 20th, 2008, at 9:24 AM.

I was trying to suggest that speech designed simply to incite, inflame and degrade had little to do with political and civic freedom and the right to dissent from orthodoxy

Right Peter - that’s is exactly - speech with a “purpose” (unknowable to all but the speaker / author, but necessarily judged by the reader / listener) that is unacceptable by the (inevitably arbitrary) standards of the audience has “little to do” with the right to dissent, etc.

I wasn’t suggesting my admittedly priggish sensitivities should be used to define the limits of permitted speech.
Our recollections differ then. Perhaps it was a bad hair day, either in your rhetoric or in my reading comprehension - I suggest we leave it at that.

Dr.Dawg
#13. July 20th, 2008, at 12:18 PM.

Now, now, you two–you conservatives wouldn’t want to be caught fighting among yourselves, would you? : )

Rod Blaine
#14. July 20th, 2008, at 1:40 PM.

You’ll observe, Dawg, that what they are quarrelling over is an issue - “My views are better for individuals’ rights and the common good!” “No, mine are!” and not over whether one is a bigot/ sexually repressed/ a war profiteer/ etc. Peter isn’t speculating about DC’s unknowable hidden agenda and Scary Secret Links To Well-Funded Right-Wing Think-Tanks: he’s arguing that DC is wrong, and explaining why.

dcardno
#15. July 20th, 2008, at 8:18 PM.

Peter isn’t speculating about DC’s unknowable hidden agenda and Scary Secret Links To Well-Funded Right-Wing Think-Tanks…

Well, he doesn’t have to speculate, does he; we regularly car-pool (well, actually, jet-pool) to the Bilderburg meetings

Peter
#17. July 21st, 2008, at 1:55 AM.

Rod:

“not over whether one is a bigot/ sexually repressed/ a war profiteer/ etc.”

Well, as dcardno and I discovered on our most agreeable private jet flights together, I’m one of those and he is another. Wouldn’t Dr. Dawg and his fans have a grand old time fisking our comments to try and decide which? Ti-Guy’s notion of Heaven.