So Glenn Beck claims that he was harassed and wine deliberately spilled on his wife by nasty, vicious liberals while trying to watch a Hitchcock film in Central Park. Meanwhile the nasty, vicious liberal in question claims that no one was bothering him, his bodyguards were giving people crap, and the wine spillage was a complete accident (claims of innocence that appear to run counter to earlier twitter messages that conveyed hostility toward Beck on her part.)
As is typically the case, everyone is the hero (or victimized party) of their own anecdote. Of course, Beck has a much larger microphone to make his case. Still, as a vicious liberal, I have to say that there’s no excuse for harassing Beck at a general event. I disagree with what he has to say, but defend his right to say it and also his right to take some time off to enjoy life with his family.
Too bad it wasn’t a Kurosawa film festival, considering the “Rashomon” aspects of the incident.
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Hey, Peter, not much to say about the Beck incident — hate to give him any more attention than he’s already had.
But I did wonder what you thought of Children’s Crusade #6… I could only think of Elmer Fudd: “Wery, wery, interesting.”
I can’t speak for the man, but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter much in the long run. There are still three more issues and enough time for things to go back to their usual status quo for Rictor and the X-Factor characters.
It’s an odd situation. If the developments in the story do matter, it’s an odd place for those plot points to finally be resolved, and the continuity will be tricky to iron out. On the other hand, if they all get undone by the end, then it was perhaps an odd story to tell in the first place. While, in general, I don’t think that every plot point needs to stick for a story to “matter”, but I’m a little fuzzy on what this story is about beyond its plot points.
Nope. No return to status quo. The events in CC#6 are permanent. I was consulted about it and agreed to it months ago.
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I opted to hold off on incorporating it into XF because I was concerned that if, for some reason, CC was delayed, we’d blow the reveal. So the recent development with Rictor will wait for the end of the current storyline to be incorporated into XF. But it WILL be incorporated, and is going to have some major impact on the Rictor/Star relationship as well.
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Thanks for the info! Yet another reason to look forward to future issues of X-Factor.
It’s just as well, CC is set at some indefinite point ‘in the future’ in relation to other Marvel comics. It’s explicitly after the current Fear Itself crossover, for instance.
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The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of the two stories. Beck is a belligerent ášš at times when he has a mic in front of him, but the only two times I was around him he seemed to want to avoid face to face confrontation of any kind. His “security” on the other hand were some of the biggest jáçkáššëš I’ve ever been around. Likewise, from what I’ve seen of this, this “innocent” guy claiming to be the victim of Beck and his crew has been openly hostile to Beck on the net. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got mouthy with little intent to do more than that (since it is fairly well known that Beck employs armed security to escort him to places) and things got escalated by the reaction of the clowns guarding Beck.
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No matter what happened, no one should be bothering Beck when he’s out with is family. Besides the fact that it’s a pretty low class thing to do, you know that Beck is just going to exaggerate the hëll out of anything that happens to him and play the part of the victim for all it’s worth so that all of his followers will rally behind him and continue the false narrative that “their side” never does anything bad like that while “the other side” does it all the time.
Beck is a belligerent ášš at times when he has a mic in front of him, but the only two times I was around him he seemed to want to avoid face to face confrontation of any kind.
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You know, you could’ve simply said that Beck is a coward when actually having to defend his nonsense. š
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I guess I’m just a true black-hearted liberal, because I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for him in the least. He’s told so many lies, and spewed so much BS, that he has no reason to be shocked if/when it comes back to bite him in the ášš.
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“Heās told so many lies, and spewed so much BS, that he has no reason to be shocked if/when it comes back to bite him in the ášš.”
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To a degree, but that still doesn’t change the fact that you do not harass someone or that someone’s family when they’re out at a public event just because you’re an ill mannered prìçk with a hair up your ášš. You don’t get to condemn someone else for being a worthless piece of human garbage and then act like a worthless piece of human garbage yourself.
“I guess Iām just a true black-hearted liberal, because I canāt bring myself to feel sorry for him in the least. Heās told so many lies, and spewed so much BS, that he has no reason to be shocked if/when it comes back to bite him in the ášš.”
Liberals find it in their hearts to feel sorry for everyone except for those who disagree with them. Stay classy, Left.
Liberals find it in their hearts to feel sorry for everyone except for those who disagree with them. Stay classy, Left.
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No, I find it in my heart to feel sorry for people who are worth feeling sorry for.
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Beck is a bully. He has his pulpit from which he think he’s so high and mighty and nobody can touch him. But in the end, he’s simply a coward. And I’m to pity him?
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But then, how classy is the Right? Let’s ask the poor, minorities and women whether the Right feels sorry for them in the least, seeing how the Right continues to try and keep them down.
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And here’s a great bit of class: Rich Swier, a leader in the Tea Party Nation, stated the other day that bullying of homosexuals is “not bullying. It is peer pressure and is healthy.”
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So, stay classy, you right wing extremists who are holding the Republican party by the balls, and who want to put your ignoramus figurehead, Michelle Bachmann, in the White House.
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“But then, how classy is the Right?”
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How classy are talkers like Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Malkin, O’Reilly, Savage, Liddy, Dr. Laura, Gallagher, Boortz, Levin, etc. on a scale of 1 to 10? Can we do negative numbers?
Liberals find it in their hearts to feel sorry for everyone except for those who disagree with them. Stay classy, Left.
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Why, how very classy of you to smear all liberals while hiding behind a screen name.
Liberals find it in their hearts to feel sorry for everyone except for those who disagree with them. Stay classy, Left.
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Conservatives made dumb ášš sweeping generalizations even when they run counter to the evidence before their own eyes, such as the posting at the top of this thread. Stay classless, Right.
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But then, how classy is the Right? Letās ask the poor, minorities and women whether the Right feels sorry for them in the least, seeing how the Right continues to try and keep them down.
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Yes, because all that horsefeathers about wanting a smaller government with a balanced budget is just a smokescreen for the real agenda, which is a sadistic attempt to keep people down. I can’t believe you figured us out so easily. Gosh.
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“Yes, because all that horsefeathers about wanting a smaller government with a balanced budget is just a smokescreen for the real agenda, which is a sadistic attempt to keep people down. I canāt believe you figured us out so easily. Gosh.”
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Given what both newly elected Tea Party Republicans and some of the longer established Republicans have voted into law concerning abortion in several states this last six months; he’s not too far off the mark despite the exaggerated nature of his statement.
What happened in Wisconsin, where stripping power away from the unions had nothing to do with balancing a budget, but simply taking power away from people because they could? And the governor is heavily backed by the rich Koch brothers, no less. Man, talk about a smokescreen!
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How about the incessant push for voter ID laws? You hear the GOP talk, and you’d think every election won by a Democrat was due to voter fraud. And yet, they aren’t. But that doesn’t stop Republicans across the nation from trying to disenfranchise the elderly and students. Just another smokescreen, or is reality hitting home yet?
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And the GOP could care less about a balanced budget, otherwise they’d offer up as much of their own pet agenda as they’re willing to sacrifice of the Dem’s.
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Cut social security and Medicare and Medicaid. Take away the minuscule amounts of funding from PBS, Planned Parenthood and the like. Oh, but make sure you give those rich people even more tax breaks to the rich while you’re at it!
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They certainly didn’t care about the deficit under Bush when they were the party in control. Ahh, but now the Dems are in control, therefore the long lost “fiscal conservativism” is found again! Bringing down the middle class is back on the agenda!
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Figure you out? The Republican Party isn’t even trying to hide what they’re doing right now.
How about the incessant push for voter ID laws? You hear the GOP talk, and youād think every election won by a Democrat was due to voter fraud. And yet, they arenāt. But that doesnāt stop Republicans across the nation from trying to disenfranchise the elderly and students. Just another smokescreen, or is reality hitting home yet?
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I’m just curious, This is a serious question. Does anyone here just walk up to their polling place and vote without showing any ID?
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I vote in every election, whether it is for the president or the school board and I always bring an ID. Either the postcard that comes in the mail or my driver’s license, sometimes both. And they ask to see an ID even though I know some of the people working there personally. Then I have to sign the book next to my name and address. I don’t consider it an imposition or that I am being discriminated against. Why would I have a problem with the election workers making sure I am who I say I am and that I am not back in the afternoon to vote again after having voted earlier in the morning when different workers may have been there?
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Voting is a precious and hard-fought right. It shouldn’t taken lightly. I don’t want people voting who are not citizens, do not have skin in the game or who would attempt to vote more than once.
Does anyone here just walk up to their polling place and vote without showing any ID?
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We’ve had mail-in balloting here for years, so I’ve never voted at an actual polling place.
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But the voter ID laws are as much about restricting the kinds of IDs used as requiring it at all. In the end, the elderly are less likely to have a state ID because they’re less likely to drive. Others are laws designed to keep students from being able to vote in the states where they attend school.
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But then, does anyone here really believe that these laws are about preventing non-existent voting fraud?
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Between voter fraud and vote suppression, the latter are practiced with far greater frequently, particularly since real suppression is occurring under the guise of preventing fraud.
Iām just curious, This is a serious question. Does anyone here just walk up to their polling place and vote without showing any ID?
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Not for the last twenty years, at least. They ask my name. I tell them. They flip through a large book, find me, and have me sign it. The signature is the same. I vote.
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You hear the GOP talk, and youād think every election won by a Democrat was due to voter fraud. And yet, they arenāt.
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No, just Kennedy vs. Nixon. I don’t seem to recall much, if any, “GOP talk” claiming there was an epidemic of fraud. (I could be wrong on this one; I just don’t remember seeing anyone adducing that argument as the basis for voter ID laws.) In my opinion, at least, the argument is better seen as a response to the potential for fraud going forward, rather than because fraud has changed the results of elections in the past.
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Plus, I just don’t get the outrage. There are more identification requirements for buying Sudafed than for voting. Is requiring people to establish that they are, in fact, citizens residing in the district in which they are voting really that unreasonable? I seriously don’t understand why it’s such a big deal, and why the left is so freaked out about it.
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But that doesnāt stop Republicans across the nation from trying to disenfranchise the elderly and students. Just another smokescreen, or is reality hitting home yet?
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Well, in the reality I inhabit, the elderly are one of the most reliable Republican voting blocs, so trying to disenfranchise them would be a really short-sighted strategy for holding on to power. I had better check with the rest of the cabal and reconsider that one.
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Or, you know, we could just ask our voters to go get an ID.
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They certainly didnāt care about the deficit under Bush when they were the party in control. Ahh, but now the Dems are in control, therefore the long lost āfiscal conservativismā is found again! Bringing down the middle class is back on the agenda!
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One could make the argument that Republicans have come to the conclusion that one reason we lost in 2006 and 2008 is that we stopped acting like Republicans and started acting like half-assed Democrats. (I’ve actually been saying that since 2006.) We did a terrible job managing the budget, particularly in Bush’s second term. And then the Democrats got elected and it got worse. We’ve gone from a situation where the national debt is getting better (balanced budget under Democratic President Clinton and a Republican Congress) to one where the projected national debt will become crippling. The fact that the GOP made mistakes in the last decade does not make it impossible for us to conclude that things have gotten out of hand now; if anything, there is a moral imperative to help fix a problem to which we contributed for many years.
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And once again, there’s the, um, let’s call it a rhetorical flourish. “Bringing down the middle class is back on the agenda!” Really? You think that’s actually the goal of anyone but Karl Marx? For what reason would we want to do that? Sheer sadism? It can’t be another conspiracy to benefit the wealthy; the wealthy got to be wealthy by selling goods and services to the middle class. If the wealthy intend to remain wealthy, they kind of need a middle class around to sustain the market economy. Or do you think that “the rich” are both stupid and insane, and thus incapable of understanding their own self interests? Or just intrinsically eeeeevil so that they must crush all others like bugs underfoot?
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Plus, to a great extent, the “tea party” folks are middle class. Do you think the middle class conservatives are trying to bring themselves down? Or is this a “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” type moment, where the people just need to be educated about why they’re wrong?
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Seriously, you’ve claimed repeatedly that the GOP actually desires to repress, at various times, the poor, minorities, women, the middle class, students, and the elderly. You don’t seem to accept the claim that the GOP actually believes in a different concept of the proper scope of government, either in the government’s goals or the government’s size. Is it, in fact, your belief that the GOP is just evil and acting out of malice and sadism? If not, why do you think the GOP wants to repress people? What do you think our motivation is? Inquiring minds want to know.
You donāt seem to accept the claim that the GOP actually believes in a different concept of the proper scope of government, either in the governmentās goals or the governmentās size.
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I don’t accept the claim because there’s no reason to think that the GOP believes it.
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They didn’t believe it 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago. There’s no reason whatsoever to think that they believe it now.
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Is it, in fact, your belief that the GOP is just evil and acting out of malice and sadism?
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Sometimes? Yes, I do. When they feed the conspiracies of birthers, when they nudge along the silliness of the Tea Party, when they want to take away the rights of women, and deny the rights of gays. When you care simply about being the party in power, regardless of how you get there, that you push for a guy to replace a dead senator, then promptly turn your back on him once he wins because you discover he isn’t goose stepping.
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Yeah, you’re a bit sadistic when these are your aims.
Weāve had mail-in balloting here for years, so Iāve never voted at an actual polling place.
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What kind of proof of identity is required when you vote by mail? If someone else takes your ballot and uses it to vote, do you have any recourse?
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Others are laws designed to keep students from being able to vote in the states where they attend school.
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When I was in college I asked for and received an absentee ballot. I took it to a polling place, showed the workers my student ID and voted. Presumably my request for an absentee ballot was recorded in my home district and had I gone home I would not have been able to vote there. If students want to vote where they got to school then they should register as residents of that community. Of course if they are only in the area for the duration of the school term that means they would also be voting for local offices that they will soon have no concern for. Is wanting to vote where you go to school simply a matter of convenience/laziness? Why not get an absentee ballot from your home district?
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Iām just curious, This is a serious question. Does anyone here just walk up to their polling place and vote without showing any ID?
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Not for the last twenty years, at least. They ask my name. I tell them. They flip through a large book, find me, and have me sign it. The signature is the same. I vote.
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Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t seem good enough. If someone already signed your name closely approximating your signature from a book autograph, (I presume the poll workers are not handwriting analysts), you could not vote until a lot of red tape was untangled. Wouldn’t it be better for you to show them your picture ID, have them look at it, look at you, then compare the signatures?
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Making voting effortless belies its importance and encourages fraud.
Maybe itās just me, but that doesnāt seem good enough.
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Okay, but…so what? Your question wasn’t, “Does anyone not show ID when they vote in a manner that I would find acceptable?” You asked, “Is there anyone who doesn’t have to show ID when they vote?” I answered in the affirmative. Did I show ID when I initially registered, to prove identity and residence? Sure. But not again since then. The fact that you don’t like it is irrelevant. When you ask a question in order to support a point and then get an answer that doesn’t support it, you don’t get to then say that you don’t like the facts as presented.
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Maybe itās just me, but that doesnāt seem good enough.
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<i.Okay, butā¦so what? Your question wasnāt, āDoes anyone not show ID when they vote in a manner that I would find acceptable?ā You asked, āIs there anyone who doesnāt have to show ID when they vote?ā I answered in the affirmative. Did I show ID when I initially registered, to prove identity and residence? Sure. But not again since then. The fact that you donāt like it is irrelevant. When you ask a question in order to support a point and then get an answer that doesnāt support it, you donāt get to then say that you donāt like the facts as presented.
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I’m not trying to argue with you. I am simply expressing my surprise that requirements for voting apparently vary so much around the country.
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I asked this question about voting to the entire board but so far only you and Craig have responded and Craig says he votes by mail and has never been to a polling place.
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I have only ever voted in the greater St. Louis area and as I described, I have to prove my identity a bit more rigorously than you do and I presume you live in the New York area. Maybe because the population there is so dense, (not being snarky), that greater ID requirements would be too time consuming.
What kind of proof of identity is required when you vote by mail? If someone else takes your ballot and uses it to vote, do you have any recourse?
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Since I’ve never gone to a polling place, and it’s been a number of years since I registered, I had to look it up. Here’s the actual voter registration form for the state of Colorado:
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http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/vote/VoterRegFormEnglish.pdf
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When going to vote, the only thing you need is something to prove you currently live in the state. Which is not the same as specifically needing a state issued ID.
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When I return the ballot, I still sign it. If I move in-state, I can change my address online and those changes automatically deal with any change in district and so on.
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If the ballot doesn’t show up, I can report that and then still show up to a polling place to vote.
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At this point, the only real threat to the system is issues outside the voters’ control. A couple of years ago, the company who was printing the ballots royally screwed up, and a bunch of them got mailed very late, etc.
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Again, the notion of widespread voter fraud is a myth. Vote suppression, however, is very much a real threat (and yes, both parties do it).
Just for some additional data points, neither Baltimore (as of a couple of years ago) nor Pittsburgh require photo ID at the time of voting, either.
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And actually, that seems fairly reasonable to me. Yes, that means someone else could go in and claim to be me and use my vote. But that’s somewhat risky. What if I already voted? Even if I come in after the fraudulent me, I can prove I am me which will raise suspicion. One incident likely won’t lead to much, but if it occurs often enough to impact the election results, it will get noted and investigated.
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The safest option is to impersonate someone that you know won’t ever show up themselves. And the safest way to do that is to get fake people registered in the first place. That can be prevented by having more strict ID and proof of residency requirements at the time of registration – which is exactly what we have.
Beck is a major áššhølë, and I won’t shed a tear if his eyebrows are singed a little by the flames of hatred he helped fan in the first place. F**k him.
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I am only sorry for his wife. As far as I know, her only crime is her horrible taste in husbands. Leave his family alone.
Red Eye just talked about the story. The woman who says she spilled the wine “accidentally” live-Tweeted the incident. First, she mentioned she was near Beck, and was quite repulsed. One of her friends asked if she could “accidentally” spill something on him.
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And then, in an astonishing coincidence, she did.
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Funny how things like that work out, huh?
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/woman-seated-near-beck-at-movie-claims-innocence-but-what-does-twitter-tell-us/
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Hardly conclusive, but certainly strongly indicative…
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Hey, at least they didn’t nail him with a cream pie or something.
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“Hey, at least they didnāt nail him with a cream pie or something.”
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Ill mannered bores who dislike Beck and Coulter act stupid and use wine and pies to harass them. Beck fans on the other hand get arrested for planning to assonate politicians and spout of Beck’s lie filled conspiracy farces to the investigators to justify their actions.
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Beck should be thankful that his detractors don’t share the same mindset as some of his fans. Hëll, he should be really thankful that they don’t follow the example set by Beck’s much beloved Tea Party and that they didn’t sneak up to his family home in the middle of the night and cut the gas lines to his house in the hopes that it would explode the next morning.
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F’n posting before coffee…
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“Beck fans on the other hand get arrested for planning to assassinate politicians and spout of Beckās lie filled conspiracy farces to the investigators to justify their actions.”
Heh. I don’t know, Jerry. You might *not* need coffee. “Assonate” sounds like it could fit Beck. Of course, he does it to himself, and doesn’t need someone else to do it to him.
Keep fixing, Jerry. “Ill-mannered boors.”
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And you got any examples of would-be assassins? The Arizona shooter was a far-left nutjob, for one.
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You’ll also impress me if you find someone who did more than just talk. On that scale, the Beck haters have far more courage of their convictions than your alleged conspirators.
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Not quite, Jay. Nutjob, yeah. But his beliefs were all over the map.
And i did have the impression that cutting gas lines had the potential for major injury. Plus the person who stepped on a womanns neck who was a hundred pounds lighter than he was, giving her a concussion, could be classified as being on the right.
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“The Arizona shooter was a far-left nutjob, for one”
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Ðûmbášš statements like that do nothing for your reputation as a liar or an uninformed idiot (depending on how kindly various people view you) around here.
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I’ve actually pointed out such individuals before. You ran away from the thread. I suppose I could do so again, quite happily, since facts often seem to make you run away.
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Byron Williams – Armed maniac wearing a bullet proof vest. Took shots at California Highway Patrol officers on I-580 in Oakland. He was on his way to carry out his planned to attack the San Francisco area Tides Foundation and the ACLU offices. The Tides Foundation was a big time target of Beck’s on his show during that period. IN investigative interviews, Williams repeated certain things that were common
themeslies in Beck’s rantings..
Williams discussing Beck on the record –
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“Well, I’m not gonna say anyone is worthwhile. But [unintelligible] I would’ve never started watching Fox if it wasn’t for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this.”
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“You need to go back to June — June of this year, 2010 — and look at all his programs from June. And you’ll see he’s been breaking open some of the most hideous corruption. … A year ago, I was watching him, and it was OK, he was all right, you know? … But now he’s getting it.”
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“Very good information regarding ‘Petrobraz’ can be found in Glenn Beck’s ‘June’ shows, where he accurately covered the Obama-Soros-Petrobraz-Chicago (Crime Inc.) connections for several days. It’s all true.”
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“I don’t think he’s a natural newscaster, you know what I mean? I look at it more like a schoolteacher on TV, you know? He’s got that big chalkboard and those little stickers, the decals. I like the way he does it.”
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Repeated references to Beck to investigators and reporters and he was stopped while going to attack two of Beck’s favorite targets of that time period. Nah, no connection there.
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Charles Wilson was arrested for making death threats against Sen. Patty Murray. In interviews with Wilson’s family, Beck and his conspiracy nuttiness came up as the primary influence that he had allowed to drive him in the months running up to the arrest.
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78-year-old City University of New York professor Frances Fox Piven became a regular target of Beck for close to year. She then received both death threats (including threats posted on Beck’s website) and fun little envelopes in the mail from people parroting Beck’s rantings.
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Beck is a liar and a a con artist. Anyone who believes his garbage needs their heads examined. But Beck is worse than even the morons he inspires to madness. He knows he’s a liar and a scammer pushing fear and paranoia for his own profit and he knows what can happen when he does it. He just doesn’t care what could happen so long as he gets ca$h.
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“And i did have the impression that cutting gas lines had the potential for major injury.”
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Come on, Roger, you know that he isn’t going to acknowledge something like that. This is Jay Tea. This is a guy who will tell you that he’s done extensive research into the Tea Party and he absolutely say that all those stories about violent Tea Party members or astro-turf “grass roots” is just all made up nonsense by the MSM.
The “left-wing” nutjob in question was a fan of Ayn Rand and fond of equating abortion to terrorism.
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Don’t confuse Jay with facts, Rene, they just scare and confuse him.
Mr. Tang, if you’re referring to the woman at the Rand Paul incident, I remember when it actually happened:
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Said woman, a MoveOn.org employee, was paid to come to the event, complete with wig and embarrassing sign. She was identified by Paul volunteers to police as potentially trouble.
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Police did nothing.
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Woman charged Paul’s car and shoved a sign in the window, hitting Paul in the face.
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Woman was pulled away from Paul’s car.
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Woman ran around Paul’s car to escape security, while it was still moving.
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Woman was charging open window a second time.
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Volunteers, possibly thinking of Squeaky Fromme (I know I was watching the video), forced her to the ground before she could get to Paul’s vehicle a second time.
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One — ONE — volunteer put his foot on her shoulder, then pressed down to hold her in place.
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Other volunteers told him not to do that, and got him to remove his foot from her shoulder.
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At NO point did he “stomp on her neck.” And he only did what he did after she had assaulted Rand Paul, and was trying like hëll to assault him again.
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So, to sum up that incident: a known liberal activist is paid to fly in to the Rand Paul debate. She is identified to the police as a potential troublemaker, but they do nothing — not even keep an eye on her. She charges Paul’s SUV while it’s still moving, shoves a sign in the window and hits Paul in the face with it. When campaign volunteers pull her away, she breaks free, runs around the still-moving SUV, and charges the window again. Campaign volunteers grab her and push her to the ground. One guy puts his foot on her shoulder and pushes her down to keep her on the ground, is immediately yelled at by other volunteers, takes his foot off her, and is still fired from the campaign by Paul.
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I wrote about the incident twice at the time: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/10/26/a-lousy-stomping.php and http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/10/27/good-career-move.php .
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Is that the “neck stomp” you’re talking about, Mr. Tang?
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Roger, do note that Jay uses the much shorter version of the video. Why? Well, for one thing it doesn’t show the Rand supporters knocking the girl around as much. For another it doesn’t as clearly show Rand leaving the SUV from where he was sitting and the windows are rolled up.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7b7i-cMRs&has_verified=1
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On the unedited bit at the end, you can even hear someone telling the guy who is stomping her head after they have her on the ground and controlled not to do that. Some of the photos from the event that popped up right after the event showed that the windows weren’t rolled down when she, as Jay put it, “shoved a sign in the window, hitting Paul in the face.” Hëll, even Rand Paul’s official statements on the matter only acknowledge the fact that he merely understood that there was some sort of altercation before the event. He wasn’t hit in the face. Oh, and the Rand Paul campaign cut ties with the áššhølë, Tim Profitt, who stomped her head because they felt it was inappropriate.
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It should also be noted that Moveon.org was doing this “Employee of the Month for Republicorp” bit before the Paul stomping incident and they had not assaulted anyone while doing it. The point was to get the subject and the sign in the same shot.
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Just for the hëll of it, here’s what she had to say about it.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/27/earlyshow/main6995613.shtml
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Jay’s fantasy world version of events is nice for the people that he caters to since they, like he, don’t care too much for facts. But like many of the talking points he passes of as “facts,” there ain’t much beef in that burger.
Also note that Jay Tea doesn’t address his incorrect and apparently still oft-touted assertion that the Arizona shooter was a ‘far-left nutjob’.
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Granted, I haven’t check the shooter’s Wikipedia entry lately to see if people are still trying to rewrite his history (see: because of Michelle Bachmann, apparently John Wayne was now born in Waterloo, IA, and not Winterset)…
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“Also note that Jay Tea doesnāt address his incorrect and apparently still oft-touted assertion that the Arizona shooter was a āfar-left nutjobā.”
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Well, that might have something to do with the fact that for Jay the Right’s talking points are “facts” and actual facts that refute that POV are things to be ignored, disagreed with or talked around while pushing the talking points. Since Jay has been courteous enough to link to his wildly hilarious humor writing once already, allow me to do that this time for him.
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“First up, no official in the Bush administration ever stated definitively stated that Saddam had WMDs.”
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2011/02/16/no-wmd-bfd.php
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If you want to see why it’s almost a worthless endeavor to actually discuss things with Jay with the expectation of him actually accepting a fact presented to him as a fact when it deflates his
factstalking points, you really need not look much further than this post that he himself wrote and the thread beneath it. He made the above fact free statement as a part of the main subject of his post. He actually made several more fact free statements in the thing as well. Several people pointed out, with links, that his statements were easily debunked with minimal effort by this fun little thing that is foreign to Jay but that we all call “fact checking.”.
Jay’s response? He ignored the facts in his initial response and then simply refused to address them in his few other responses in the thread. He simply hid behind the mouth breathers that regularly post there and let them prove that their stupidity is actually slightly greater than his and basically declared that they like the lie when it’s what they want to hear.
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Jay doesn’t deal in facts. Jay deals in talking points that he wants to believe and when real facts come along he either doubles down on the stupid, ignores the facts all together or just runs away. He tried to make a joke in that thread though and inadvertently spoke a very real truth about himself.
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Jay Tea: “Far more important, though, I live in an alternate universe.
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In my universe, things unfolded a little bit differently.”
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We know, Jay, you prove that you live some other place besides the real universe pretty much every time you post something.
Jay, two points:
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The woman received a concussion. This is verified in press reports. Neck stomp is an appropriate term to use.
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GIven that she was known to the police and that her activities up until then was non violent, THE POLICE ACTED PROPERLY. Calling her a troublemaker is blaming the victim and is trying to excuse a violent over-reaction.
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I am not impressed with your reasoning and use of facts. You don’t get a pass for excusing this violence.
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And….cutting gas lines, hm?
I’m not surprised. One can see that kids, in today’s culture, are taught by their parents that if they don’t like someone then you treat them anyway you want, and how dare they expect you to treat them with any decency.This is contrary to previous generations of Americans who were generally influenced by the Judeo-Christian ethics which taught, “Love your enemies” and “Treat your neighbor as you would want to be treated”. We are definitely a more hedonistic/pragmatic culture in which the type of behavior Glenn Beck was subjucted to is bound to be more common.
And it wasn’t that many generations ago where those ethics taught that it was ok to own other people as property.
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So, let’s not act like this is new, or that today’s culture is somehow to blame compared to yesteryear.
Judeochris… yeah right.
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1- Developed societies nowadays enjoy a level of civility between political opponents that no past time can match. In the (recent) past people got killed and beaten for expressing political views not half as excessive as Beck’s. Please tell me a time when “live and let live” and “dont kill your political enemies” attitudes were more present than today.
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2- How comes “love your enemies” is a judeo-christian value? Actually, what does “judeo-christian” means to you? As a label is one both too broad and too convenient. Handpicking ethical and societal traits and adscribing them to the one part of your cultural heritage you want to uphold constitutes a logical fallacy; “we were better persons back then” (wich is false) plus “We used to be less secular” to imply that secularism and foreign influence make us worse as a society.
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“2- How comes ālove your enemiesā is a judeo-christian value? Actually, what does ājudeo-christianā means to you? As a label is one both too broad and too convenient. Handpicking ethical and societal traits and adscribing them to the one part of your cultural heritage you want to uphold constitutes a logical fallacy; āwe were better persons back thenā (wich is false) plus āWe used to be less secularā to imply that secularism and foreign influence make us worse as a society.”
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See my basic comments in a prior thread about CliffsNotes Christians. Pretty much explains these comments from Rudy as well.
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Rudy: “This is contrary to previous generations of Americans who were generally influenced by the Judeo-Christian ethics which taught, āLove your enemiesā and āTreat your neighbor as you would want to be treatedā. We are definitely a more hedonistic/pragmatic culture in which the type of behavior Glenn Beck was subjucted to is bound to be more common.”
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These would be the previous generations who stoned, drowned and burned people at the stake because they were witches? These would be the previous generations who made it a crime to practice any but the approved religion and flogged or executed people who didn’t comply? These would be the previous generations who took the attitude of believing that God put this land here “for us” and so them red skinned people could get the hëll out or get a bullet in the head? These would be the previous generations who would lynch people because their skin was the wrong color? These would be the previous generations who would stand in the street and throw mud, sticks and rocks at people who were speaking because they didn’t like what was being said? These would be the previous generations who believed that using force to run “the wrong kind of people” out of town was a good thing to do?
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Rudy, you suffer from a common problem that many other people suffer from. You have a limited knowledge of the day to day of the past and thus believe that it was always better back then. Kids are so much more misbehaved now than they ever were before. People have so much less regard for the sanctity of life these days. People just aren’t as kind to their neighbors these days as they were “back in the good old days.”
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It’s hogwash, Rudy. If anything, we’re sometimes a lot better about some of these things nowadays than we ever were “back in the good old days.”
Can you actually be a Conservative without having a rose-colored view of the past?
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I was just going to answer with a “yes” and leave it that way, but in thinking about it I realized that it’s actually pretty rare in my experience to meet a conservative who doesn’t wear their rose tinted glasses when looking at now VS the “good old days.” And the more high profile the conservatives, the more they tend to talk as if they wear such glasses all the time.
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You comment actually got me thinking about this in a way I haven’t really thought about it before. This is a bit of a broad brush statement, but it seems like that idea is actually a large and strong rock in the foundation of modern conservatism. So many speeches and policy ideas that seem to be different variation of saying the same thing over and over again; it was better back before [blank] happened, changed things and started the downhill slide and we need to go back to the way things were in “the good old days.”
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Conversely, I think too many modern Liberals look at the past and make it out to be even worse than it really was. It’s a mindset that seems to excuse bad behavior by some that they would not excuse in others because it’s making up for the horrible things done to [fill in a group of your choosing] or to come up with ideas or laws that greatly overcompensate for the actual wrong doings of the past.
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Still, I think I would rather (mostly) go along with the group that looks at things and says that what’s wrong with certain problems is that we haven’t learned/changed/grown enough and we need to do more of that and not the group that looks at everything, declares that “they” were what started the downhill slide and that the answer is to go back to a past that was never as nice, shiny and rose tinted as they think it was.
“Can you actually be a Conservative without having a rose-colored view of the past?”
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G.K. Chesterton once observed that Conservatives are intent on repeating the mistakes of the past while Liberals are determined to make new ones.
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“You comment actually got me thinking about this in a way I havenāt really thought about it before. This is a bit of a broad brush statement, but it seems like that idea is actually a large and strong rock in the foundation of modern conservatism. So many speeches and policy ideas that seem to be different variation of saying the same thing over and over again; it was better back before [blank] happened, changed things and started the downhill slide and we need to go back to the way things were in āthe good old days.”
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Well, there are aspects of the past that I prefer to modern sensibilities. I certainly miss the time when we weren’t ruled by political correctness and the tyranny of politeness.
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Jerry, you appear to me to be a sensible individual who usually gets his facts right. Though I disagree with your interpretations of events, I’ve grown to respect you. So let me ask you, who are the founders of conservatism? What are our influential books? I’m not asking for last year’s best sellers, but rather the works that shape our intellectual heritage.
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I’ve read William James, John Dewey, the Humanist Manifesto, and others. I’ve sought out the foundational thinking of progressives, and if I disagree with it, it’s because I’ve seen what a century of their ideas has done.
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Sure, I’ve met a few conservatives who long for a time that didn’t exist. However, at least in circle I run in, most are very self-conscious of their epistemology.
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“Conversely, I think too many modern Liberals look at the past and make it out to be even worse than it really was. Itās a mindset that seems to excuse bad behavior by some that they would not excuse in others because itās making up for the horrible things done to [fill in a group of your choosing] or to come up with ideas or laws that greatly overcompensate for the actual wrong doings of the past.”
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That would have been my next point.
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“Still, I think I would rather (mostly) go along with the group that looks at things and says that whatās wrong with certain problems is that we havenāt learned/changed/grown enough and we need to do more of that and not the group that looks at everything, declares that ātheyā were what started the downhill slide and that the answer is to go back to a past that was never as nice, shiny and rose tinted as they think it was.”
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And this brings us back to a fundamental misunderstanding of what conservatism is. The average conservative isn’t advocating a roll back to the world of his youth, so much as he is desiring a less intrusive government.
I think you are confusing Libertarian with Conservative, Malcolm. Libertarians want a smaller government. Conservatives give, at best, lip service to this idea (they love a HUUUUUUGE military and certainly don’t complain when government backs faith-based initiatives, or any iniciatives they approved of).
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And even those Conservatives who genuinely want a smaller government, want a lot more than just that. According to that Glenn Beck dude, in the 9 principles of Conservatives, only 3 of them mention government.
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I see the “we’re only for small government, seriously” meme as a a few of the more intelligent Conservatives realizing how some of their true goals aren’t palatable to most people, and let’s say sugarcoating the pill?
I thought of a great test based on what Malcolm said. Approach 100 Conservatives and ask them what they think of my idea of abolishing government so that I can take all the drugs I want, marry multiple men and women, and take Bible-burning as a hobby.
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How many of the 100 would say: That is awesome, down with government, dude.”?
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Perhaps 1 in 100? 1 in 10.000?
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Malcolm, do note that I did admit that it’s a bit of a broad brush statement and speaking only on my experience and observations. Living in Central Virginia for so many years of my life and also having been around people who practically worshipped Robertson, Falwell and Roberts, I get to see a lot of the worst that I was talking about.
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“So let me ask you, who are the founders of conservatism? What are our influential books? Iām not asking for last yearās best sellers, but rather the works that shape our intellectual heritage.”
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I’m not sure I can answer that. Each little subset of conservatives is going to claim a different set of works and thinkers as the “important ones.” Certainly I would think that the Founding Fathers should be in there. That’s a claim of heritage that most Republicans and conservatives have made. I’ve read them though and found that they’re not quite the staunch “conservatives” that many conservatives believe them to be. There have been various works over the years detailing the benefits of free enterprise and capitalism that I’m sure make up the backbone of some conservative reading lists as well. But I don’t think that your question has a one size fits all answer any more than it would have if you had asked me to name the founders and books of Liberalism and the Progressive movement. Some are more extreme and some source more extreme works. Some trace their roots back to more modern times while some claim far older sources. Hëll, I’ve seen Progressives state in absolute dead serious intent that Jesus was a Progressive.
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William James and John Dewey… I quite like some of what Dewey said about what both education and journalism should be but I tend to disagree with both gentleman to varying degrees on a lot of the other philosophies they espoused.
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“And this brings us back to a fundamental misunderstanding of what conservatism is. The average conservative isnāt advocating a roll back to the world of his youth, so much as he is desiring a less intrusive government.”
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And I would be all for that, but that’s not what I’m seeing right now from the more prominent “Conservatives” out there or the more prominent and supported members of the Republican party. I see a lot of people giving lip service to smaller government and balanced budgets when and where the speech needs that little bit of extra punch, but still throwing out lines that boil down to “the good old days” rhetoric.
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Far too many of the Republican party power players and far too many of the people getting popular support from conservatives espouse the idea of “going back” far too often for my liking. I dislike it for one because that wonderful past never existed and I strongly dislike it when the speaker references certain dates in recent history as the time it started going wrong that we need to go back beyond to make this country great again when those dates are basically the time periods of the civil rights movement or women getting the right to vote. In the case of the latter, whether the speaker meant it in the worse way that it could be taken or not, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of them or the people cheering them and, when they’re not saying something like that in a deliberate attempt to cater to racists in the crowd and voter block, it can damage what good they might be able to do by turning off a number of moderates who take what was said wrong and no longer support such a person.
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Just a bad message to have. We don’t go back. We go forward. Sure, if something works we should keep it, but we should still always try to improve on it as we move forward.
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“And this brings us back to a fundamental misunderstanding of what conservatism is. The average conservative isnāt advocating a roll back to the world of his youth, so much as he is desiring a less intrusive government.”
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And I know some like that as well. But they are being drowned out by the louder fringe and by some of their modern elected “leaders” that do want that and, much as some of the nuts on the Left are doing, painting a poor picture of their side.
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This next bit isn’t directed at you, it’s just some stuff I wanted to type up above but didn’t have the book I needed to reference it from earlier in the day.
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“Our Earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.” – A tablet from ancient Assyria, about 2800 BC.
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“Children are now tyrants… They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.” – Socrates
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“What is happening to our young people? The disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” – Plato writing about his students.
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A lot of millennia covered in those three quotes, yet they all read like they were pulled from yesterday’s letters to the editor page.
“I think you are confusing Libertarian with Conservative, Malcolm. Libertarians want a smaller government. Conservatives give, at best, lip service to this idea (they love a HUUUUUUGE military and certainly donāt complain when government backs faith-based initiatives, or any iniciatives they approved of).”
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I am not confusing the two. Yes, we do favor a strong military, and that is something that sets us apart. Also, we’re not anywhere near as isolationist in our views on foreign policy. I also think you miss how many conservatives (myself included) did complain when Bush unveiled the faith based initiatives.
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“I thought of a great test based on what Malcolm said. Approach 100 Conservatives and ask them what they think of my idea of abolishing government so that I can take all the drugs I want, marry multiple men and women, and take Bible-burning as a hobby.
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How many of the 100 would say: That is awesome, down with government, dude.ā?
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Perhaps 1 in 100? 1 in 10.000”
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I said a less intrusive government, not anarchy. Also, it’s important to note that we see a difference between liberty and libertine.
What is the difference? Liberty is freedom to do the stuff you approve of, libertine is using freedom to do stuff you don’t approve of. In other words: Everybody should be free to live a good, clean Christian. What kind of freedom is that?
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I also love how Conservatives want a smaller government, but just big enough to impose their favored views. I don’t know how Conservatives can reconcile small government with the war on drugs.
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To me it’s all a sham, a way to scream BIG GOVERNMENT every time the givernment tries to impose something they don’t like, but keeping quite when it’s some intrusion they approve of.
I meant:
Everybody should be free to live a good, clean Christian LIFE.
“Iām not sure I can answer that… But I donāt think that your question has a one size fits all answer any more than it would have if you had asked me to name the founders and books of Liberalism and the Progressive movement.”
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I find that startling considering the amount of research you do. Modern conservatism (a.k.a. classic liberalism) has a rich intellectual heritage that includes at least two Nobel Prize winning economists. Yes, we include the founding fathers, but that’s not from nostalgia so much as it is from our distrust of big government.
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“This next bit isnāt directed at you, itās just some stuff I wanted to type up above but didnāt have the book I needed to reference it from earlier in the day.”
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Those are great quotes, but it doesn’t prove they weren’t right. While I believe that things are more morally corrupt than they were in my youth, or at any other time in American history, I can name many times in world history where things were far worse.
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“I find that startling considering the amount of research you do. Modern conservatism (a.k.a. classic liberalism) has a rich intellectual heritage that includes at least two Nobel Prize winning economists.”
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Yeah, but I’m also always running into conservatives who claim that “A” isn’t really as important as “B” and then find others who claim that “B” is the most important while still others ask who in the hëll “A” and “B” are and want to know why I’m not talking about “G,” “L” and “Q.”
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And then there was that time he lost all of his powers and hid on the Enterprise. That was… Sorry, went off track there.
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Conservatives and Republicans are not a monolithic groups who suffer from total and complete group think on every matter under the sun or even on what constitutes the most important aspects of the movement. Hëll, I’ve several times seen modern conservatives clash with older conservatives over who really had the right idea about the core principles of the movement in just this last two years. I’ve seen Liberals clashing over what they each think of as the important foundations of their movement as well.
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Once any movement starts growing and changing over time, it adds to its roots and occasionally has subgroups that disavow completely some of their roots in favor of either looser or stricter variations on the base ideas. Hëll, even psychology has branches that rubbish Freud while other branches hail him as the great master of the field.
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“Those are great quotes, but it doesnāt prove they werenāt right. While I believe that things are more morally corrupt than they were in my youth, or at any other time in American history, I can name many times in world history where things were far worse.”
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I wasn’t pointing them out to say that they weren’t right (in a general sense) about what they were seeing around them. I was quoting them to point out that nothing really changes and it’s been this way for a long, long time. The older generation always talks about how it was better in their day and about how the newer generation acts in ways they never would. However, if you look at what was said about them when they were the younger generation by their older generation…
I thought of a great test based on what Malcolm said. Approach 100 Conservatives and ask them what they think of my idea of abolishing government so that I can take all the drugs I want, marry multiple men and women, and take Bible-burning as a hobby.
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How many of the 100 would say: That is awesome, down with government, dude.ā?
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Perhaps 1 in 100? 1 in 10.000?
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Conversely, If I approached 100 liberals and asked them what they think of my idea of expanding government so that I can tell people whether or not they can have children, control free speech so that nobody says upsetting things and see to it that everyone gets put in a job that best suits their talents, like it or not, how many would gleefully sign up for that government expansion? few, I reckon. Which tells us…exactly nothing!!!
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Being conservative does not always mean government is always bad. Being liberal does not mean government is always good.
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One of the more annoying aspects of president Obama is this tendency he has of framing issues in stark contrasts that have nothing to do with the real story. “Some say we should do nothing to fix the economy; I say we should spend a trillion dollars.” that sort of thing. It’s hooey because that is not the choice. I believe it is a fact that every republican in the House and Senate voted for a stimulus plan…just not necessarily his stimulus plan.
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Similarly, its fatuous to think that it’s a valid gotcha to point out that conservatives who are aghast at a rapidly expanding government are in favor of some aspects of government. No kidding. Some liberals may be agaisnt the military industrial complex but I’m sure all but the most thick headed would agree that the military has done much good. I doubt any of them would turn down help from the national guard during a hurricane.
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Conservatives and liberals do not fit into neat little categories. When you ask if it’s possible to be a Conservative without having a rose-colored view of the past I can only conclude you have a very limited exposure to conservatives or somehow are driving away all but those who conform to your stereotype. I have friends, good jump in front of a runaway paint truck to save my life type friends of every imaginable political stripe. Including a few who have opinions that, bless their hearts, make me seriously wonder maybe their chimney needs sweeping but whatever. I didn’t seek out this rainbow coalition of philosophy, I just didn’t treat anyone who disagrees with me as if they were the intellectual heirs to the KKK or the Weather Underground.
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Obviously, one’s mileage may vary. Some people can’t stand to be around people who would DARE to have opinions so incredibly radical and off the charts insane that they could…they could…vote for the member of that other party!!! You know, the one that gets around half the votes.
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And jeeze, what a miserable state of mind it must be to think that ha;f the people around you are sooooo much more stupid, evil or both than oneself.
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Back to Rene’s test. Right off the bat, when you got to the words “abolishing government” I would probably zone out and start desperately looking for the exits so I might miss the reasons. If pressed my opinions would be:
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A- “take all the drugs I want”– Have fun. Nice knowing you. Reality is way more fun but it’s not for everyone.
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B- “marry multiple men and women”–only if all the benefits and legal issues are taken away from marriage. Sorry, but we can’t have criminals marrying everyone in their organization so that none can be compelled to testify and stuff like that. On the other hand, if you want to live with and have sex with as many people as you choose it’s no skin off my back so have at it.
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C-“take Bible-burning as a hobby.”– I’m pretty sure you can do that right now, what’s stopping you? Our first amendment allow all manner of pointless jackassery. In fact, having a government that explicitly allows for that kind of expression might be safer than not having one. try burning a Koran in the lawless sectors of Pakistan and see what happens.
Bill, Liberals don’t claim to be for big government. Big government is more of a tool to achieve what they truly desire, ie. food, housing, health care, the essentials of living, for everyone.
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Conversely, Malcolm says Conservatives ARE for small government. But I don’t think they are. Their actions when in office say otherwise. I wish they were. I wish Ron Paul was the kind of figure Conservatives sought to emulate.
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But, in my experience, Conservatives that opposed the Iraq War, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, are extremely rare, a lot rarer than Liberals. There are more Sarah Palins than there are Ron Pauls.
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Both Liberals and Conservatives are often hypocritical and betray their stated goals.
Liberals: stated goal – individual freedom; real goal – being a benevolent nanny for everybody. Conservatives: stated goal – small government; real goal – traditional values for everybody.
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I am honest with myself. I support the Liberals because I think both their stated and real goals are more palatable to me than the Conservative alternative. But hey, I’m not blind to what their real goals are.
Conversely, Malcolm says Conservatives ARE for small government.
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Ah, but your hypothetical question postulated not smaller government but no government at all.
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One could be all for the War in Iraq and still be for a smaller government–a government that was almost exclusively dedicated to defense would be smaller than the one we have now. One could be for all the things you mentioned–Iraq War, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act–and still be for an overall smaller government.
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I don’t see a huge difference in saying that liberals are for big government and saying that no, they just see it as a tool to achieve what they truly desire. That’s like saying someone isn’t for the military, he just likes being able to invade countries and blow up their shoe factories.
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But I have to respect your intuition on the fact that both sides practice a lot of lip service to their supposed ideas.
Rene, my point was that I was not confusing conservatives with libertarians. When I speak of the size of government, I’m actually refering to the number of people in its employ and the incredible amount of wealth it devours. I wasn’t trying to address moral issues because I’m trying not to derail the thread any more than necessary.
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On issues like the War on Drugs I’m not an enthusiastic supporter. The search and seizure laws alone boil my blood.
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As for Ron Paul, he is probably the most ideaologically pure conservative politician out there. The only issues I really disagree with him on is the use of the military, and some foreign policy concerns.
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“As for Ron Paul, he is probably the most ideaologically pure conservative politician out there.”
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And that’s a perfect example of what I was talking about before in reference to the type of question you asked. I would agree with you that on many things Ron Paul is much closer to what I would imagine a conservative to actually be than many others I’ve seen parading around the public square. Yet, there are any number of self described conservatives and Republicans out their who will tell you point blank that he’s not a true conservative.
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And it’s just as goofy on the Left these days. Obama is easily to the left of me by a country mile and then some and I’m by far to the left of W. Bush. But there are people on the Left out there declaring with all sincerity that Obama from a wishy washy moderate or even declaring that Obama is W. Bush’s third term in office.
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Our system has become too small for the people that function in it. We more or less insist that we only have two real parties and, in general, three groups (conservatives, liberals and libertarians) to classify people with when the reality of the situation is that both parties and each of the three groups have become so filled with diverse opinions and philosophies that we could probably five or six fairly strong and noticeably different parties and a hëll of a lot more sub classifications.
Our system has become too small for the people that function in it. We more or less insist that we only have two real parties and, in general, three groups (conservatives, liberals and libertarians) to classify people with when the reality of the situation is that both parties and each of the three groups have become so filled with diverse opinions and philosophies that we could probably five or six fairly strong and noticeably different parties and a hëll of a lot more sub classifications.
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I tend to think of the major parties as pre-made coalitions. If we had multiple parties, potentially every House of Representatives could be a hung parliament, but I would expect the factions to coalesce in order to provide a unified majority party or opposition much as they do now. On the other hand, it could work out like the UK, and a party with a 40% vote share distributed as a plurality across the board could end up with 300 seats. I think that would actually be much, much worse than what we have now. An ideologically pure party with a substantial majority could get into a lot of mischief. I think we’re better off with one party of people who are more or less conservative and one party of people who are more or less liberal, neither of which is ever fully able to effectuate a radical agenda.
Sincerely, I think both parties are for big government, Bill. Their only difference is in which areas they want the government to interfere. Liberals at least don’t delude themselves about desiring a small government.
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But, like I said, Liberals delude themselves about other things. Removing ņìggër from Mark Twain and removing guns from citizens do not strike me as the actions of people devoted to individual freedom.
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Jerry is right that neither group is monolithic, though. Bush had a knack for bringing out radicalism in people. The atmosphere is still a bit contaminated from that.
Well, PAD, that’s because you were raised right.
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The dopes who harassed Beck’s family are also not too bright, trying to cover their tracks with a fruitless attempt to delete all internet records of how things went down. If a congressman can’t do it what chance does a fame grubbing nobody? Amazingly, Lindsey Piscitell thought it was a smart thing to put here name out there with an account that she herself puts into doubt. When will people learn that the internet never forgets? Now, every stupid thing she has ever done or said will be mined by a guy she doesn’t like who can share the info with millions. Nice plan, toots.
Much as I tremendously dislike Beck, this sort of behavior shouldn’t be done by anyone. It’s a shame that common courtesy is no longer common, and that some people think the best response to an obnoxious person is obnoxious behavior.
I believe PAD has said the best response to hateful speech is free speech. This person should have continued to speak out against Beck, not act like a rude jáçkášš to his family.
Sorry, but Beck gets no sympathy from me. Don’t care. He’s a “celebrity” and he shouldn’t expect any more “rights” than any other celebrity gets when trying to enjoy some “private time.”
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Additionally, when you spend the majority of your professional time verbally attacking and bullying people because they don’t think or hold your viewpoints, you really don’t get to have any “private time” with your family. Didn’t Beck (along with the other FoxNoise hounds) attack the Obamas for their “date nights”? Why should Beck expect any more leeway than he allows others? Does he think that just because he’s not an elected official he’s somehow exempt from being criticized in public? Of course, some conservative elected officials (*cough*Chris Christie*cough*) do seem to think they don’t have to explain themselves or their actions to their constituents so Beck may believe he is allowed to walk around in public with his family and not being “harassed.”
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Fame comes with a price, Mr Beck. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it, you wuss. (And while his wife shouldn’t have to be collateral damage, I’m not going to cry too much for her. She HAS to know what to expect when the pair of them aren’t in a tightly-controlled situation.)
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“Didnāt Beck (along with the other FoxNoise hounds) attack the Obamas for their ādate nightsā? Why should Beck expect any more leeway than he allows others?
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Yeah, they did do that. They did it on their TV and radio shows and not by getting in the Obama’s faces and throwing things at them Big, big difference. Beck can run his lie spewing yap as much as he wants to. Beck can say pretty much anything he wants to about someone. They in return can say just about anything they want to say about him in return. However, once either party crosses that line of verbal-to-physical, then they are now in the wrong.
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It really isn’t that hard of a concept to grasp. Words in and of themselves do not make physical contact, do not cause physical discomfort and do no physical harm. If you act in a physical manner because you don’t like the words, you are in the wrong and you are an idiot.
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Period.
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End of story.
Keep on going, Joseph. Explain how Beck’s wife and kids also deserve it, for choosing to associate with him. Or how it’s his fault, for allowing them to be near him in public.
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I’m going to be seeing PAD in a little over a week. I can’t stand his politics. And I intend to be as polite and fannish as I have the last several years I’ve attended Shore Leave.
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J.
Speaking of “Rashomon”-like phenomena, PAD, I recall a Spider-Man story several (like 15-20) years back involving Spidey, Mary Jane, and an inept bank robbery. Did you have “Rashomon” specifically in mind when you wrote it? I came to it in the opposite sequence: I read the story as a young adult or teenager, and when I discovered “Rashomon,” it reminded me of the comic.
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I haven’t read the story in well over a decade, so watch me completely butcher the description.
I am not PAD, but since one of the buildings in the same issue had a sign that said “Roshomon Cleaners” (or something like that) it would be a safe conclusion.
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More conclusive is the fact that in a column PAD specifically stated that he riffed Rashomon for the story and had the building sign included for that very reason, commenting to the effect of “if you are going to plagarize, at least cite your source.”
Here’s what happened with that issue. Editor Jim Owsley was in a fix where, in order to get the book on track deadline-wise, he needed to take an issue and split it between four different artists. And we had to do it in a way that wouldn’t look choppy. So I said to him, “How about I do a Rashomon story.” He said, “What’s that?” I explained that I’d do a story where a particular incident occurred, and different people would describe the incident from their individual perspectives. And we’d have different artists do each of the perspectives.
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PAD
Posts like JosephW’s show what this whole thing is about, to me at least. Respect. If this truly wasn’t an accident, then the guilty party, be they the wine dropper or Glenn Beck or the bodyguards or the squirrels that Bill Myers has been eyeing up in Central Park, has shown a remarkable lack of respect for the other side. Respect is due a dog. Disagree all you want with a person’s stance on issues or presentation or choice of salad dressing, but unless their family members are also dealing in the issue then they should remain off limits. Also, if you want to gain respect amongst both your friends and your adversaries, you need to SHOW respect. Act like a common playground bully and whatever message you may have, valid though it may be, will be forgotten behind the actions. Also, the location is to be respected. People were in the park to see Hitchcock, a worthy endeavor if ever there was one. They were not there to engage in political or oenolgical debate.
Glenn Beck said of the incident: “All I wanted to do is go out on a blanket with my family and have dinner in the afternoon sun and sit around Americans, not like-minded Americans, and just watch a movie in the park.”
You know what the people around them should have done? Trade places with some gay couple, or with a Muslim family, or with a spanish speaking latin person. Dimes to dollars, he leaves
Guess what, Kabe? You don’t know what you’re talking about. the man knew he was in New York and simply wanted to watch a Hitchcock movie with his family, especially his daughter. When the ruckus first started, his daughter said she was sorry and said she understood if he wanted to leave and he reportedly said, “NO! we are staying and enjoying the movie. I refuse to leave.”
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if he refused to leave a couple ignorant jerks, potentially exposing himself to more provocation and physical abuse, it’s absurd to think he would have left in those other situations.
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So, Kabe, you would have traded acting like an ášš for acting like an entirely different kind of ášš? The man, ášš that he is, was out with his family and trying to let his family enjoy something nice.
I’d say it was highly likely he was already sitting in very close proximity to gays, Muslims and latinos. This is New York City and quality cinema is not something only of interest to Straight White Christians, you know.
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Is there something he has said that would indicate he cannot stand to be in the same place with gays, muslims and latinos or is that just a hope you have so as to justify this kind of petty infantile display of incivility? Seriously, I’m curious, since I have never had the dubious pleasure of sitting through an entire Beck show.
Not that I would condone the harassment of Beck, alone or with his family, I firmly believe in the intrinsic value of civility. But…
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Isn’t this guy an apologist for collateral damage in a confrontation? Haven’t I heard (from him and many others, even here) that the family of an enemy has only him to blame if they get killed or maimed? Can we look up what he had to say about the topic?
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By no means I suggest it’s ok to harass one’s political enemies, no matter how harmful they are. But I find it funny the pruddish way some say “oh well, he’s fair game but not his family”. Funny, that’s all.