This week, in the wake of a shooting spree of a madman, which could not have been inspired by the “vitriolic rhetoric” of any mainstream political philosophy, the people were prevented from absorbing the full impact of events by the Left’s sad, yet predictable rush to blame it on people who had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. What a difference a year makes. This year, those who often presume their own “enlightenment” tripped over themselves in their rush to judgment, making specific public figures upon whom they have focused their own vitriol for years somehow responsible for the shootings in Tucson, and also took the opportunity to also make a large number of Americans (aka “the Tea Party”) unindicted co-conspirators as well. Unfortunately, this rush to judgment, which was completely unacceptable and impermissible when a far more tragic shooting spree committed by an acolyte of the “religion of peace” [the one constantly connected to kidnappings, suicide bombings, beheadings of westerners, and an inordinate amount of rapes and riots in western european countries] ran up a much higher butcher’s bill at Ft. Hood a year ago, was not only tacitly accepted among the same people who last year preached caution and “waiting until we had the facts” as reasonable, but also taking for granted that their breathless declarations were indeed correct.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the effigy burning. The narrative didn’t take.
Perhaps it was the fact that many average Americans didn’t appreciate being told by coastal elites and various political operatives that they were so stupid that they were incapable of discerning between the images evoked in political speech, and reality. Maybe they rejected the notion that the use of descriptive metaphors incited them to violence when being lied to and stolen from did not. Maybe it was because as the facts came out, it became apparent that this troubled young man was just a troubled young man, and that there was no connection at all between his decision to shoot a Congresswoman who he had been obsessed with for years and the “hateful rhetoric” we were being told motivated this horrific act. Maybe it was all of these things.
Regardless of the cause, many of these outlets and individuals grudgingly were forced to admit that the speech they were so quick to decry in others had nothing to do with the events last Saturday, while taking the position that it still could next time, which is why these dangerous people must be stopped. However, this bit of frantic and hypocritical wishcasting still wasn’t gaining traction with the public as a whole. Perhaps this is because the public has actually been paying attention for the last few years, and they weren’t as receptive to the idea that only one side of the political spectrum was guilty of such “crimes” as they might have been ten years ago. Perhaps it is because they don’t like being bullied. But by the time the President was finally able to put together his pep rally campaign event memorial service (Now complete with cheering, catcalls, and free T-Shirts!!!), he had his opportunity to gauge the public’s mood, and he could tailor his remarks to a “teachable moment” that elevated him above the fray that he himself has eagerly engaged in in the not so distant past:
The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy [– it did not –] but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.
Judging from the response to the speech, this move pleased some, but it strikes me more as a fatigue on the subject than it does the result of careful reflection. As for myself, I take this as the latest installment of their typical game of “SHUT UP!” when met with opposition to their ideas, goals, and plans. If the President really meant what he said, then even more than naming names, which he did not do (and which would not have been appropriate for a memorial), he could, for the first time in his political career, lead by example. His own record on “civility” and “working together” is woefully inadequate, which is why I found his renewed call for civility self-serving and unconvincing.
This is not the first time we heard the call for civility from the President.
While running for office, Candidate Obama paid lipservice to the concept of civility, something completely forgotten when he got his opportunity to “rule”. He again raised this call when it suited his goals of the moment. As if we could forget such moments of “civility” like
That’s not someone who wants to “work together”. That’s not someone interested in “Civility”. That’s someone who will engage in lies, half-truths, and distortions to gain a political advantage. And his supporters? They actually do worse.
There is so very much more. Some excellent examples of the Left’s “Civility” are found here.
It isn’t that the Left has expended so much energy and money being extraordinarily uncivil with people who don’t agree with their ideas and policies, and who don’t meet with their approval. These things have definitely come to pass, but being an attorney, who goes to court often enough to understand how to characterize opponents, debate, and the “narrative”, it doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the shameless…yes I mean shameless attempt to impose a self-censorship that they cannot attain by other means, while at the same time, their own calls come on the heels of their manifestation of their own unwillingness to be “civil” and “work together”.
Let me be clear. I don’t like what you advocate for the country. As a student of law and history, I find your goals and agenda items diametrically opposed to the freedoms that our Founders recognized and that the Framers guaranteed. I am repulsed by your constant drive to respond to every perceived problem with more government. I am sickened by your constant willingness to divest the individual of any responsibility, and your apparent shock when the corresponding benefits are squandered and misused. I resent the persistent demonization of those who take risks, because they want to reap the rewards, or because that is simply part of their nature, as someone who takes advantage of and steals from his brother. I despise your willingness to institutionalize indolence, and build rolls and rolls of dependents and wards of the state, who can be reliably counted on to deliver votes and keep you in power. I find it despicable that you have invaded the field of public education and have not only robbed entire generations of Americans of their own history, but have inculcated them with the belief that they must be ashamed of the drips and drabs that you reveal to them through the cracked and warped lenses of your own misbegotten perceptions. Your efforts have been damaging to the greatest engine of innovation and scientific advancement in the last three centuries, and I condemn you for your pernicious attempts to snuff out the single brightest light of mankind’s freedom that the world has ever known.
I can’t “work together” with you, because we have very different beliefs and ideas about the future of this country. You want a nation that is no different from any other. One where the government is not just in my toilet bowl and my light sockets, but in determining my paycheck, and what part of my labor that I get to keep for myself. In what I power my vehicle with, and what vehicle it is. In the brightness of the light in my dining room and bathroom. In how I choose to defend my family and what I eat. In what I and others say. In what I read, and what I listen to and watch on television, and ultimately, what I think.
I want none of these things. I want the freedoms that our forebears wanted for us. I want the right to earn as much money as I feel like working for. I want the right to hire the right person for the job, not be forced to meet a nebulous and undefinable “diversity” criteria. I want the right to drive a Gaia-raping pavement predator, and fill the tank with the oil squeezed from the pelts of baby seals if that is what delivers the best performance for my money. I want a world where people have not just read the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers, but understand them. I want to live in a society that is not wedded to the idea that every society that is different is automatically equal to our own. I want to live in a society that celebrates its achievements instead of glossing them over and dwelling on our failures. I want to live in a society where I am free to waste what belongs to me in whatever fashion I wish, be it opening the windows and doors and turning up the heat in the winter, or having a double cheese and meat pizza after a quadruple bypass without my government, which exists to guarantee and defend my freedoms, tell me that I can’t, because it has that has assumed that power over me.
In such a situation, where the ideological lines are so clearly drawn, the “civility” that you get is it the civility you give. Your civility, for decades, has to been to tell us that we are stupid. To mock those who speak for our views. To paint anyone who believes as we do as being stupid, ignorant, and hateful. You have poured scorn, derision, and condescension upon us with the obliviousness of those who never gave a thought to what they were doing. Any attempt at a dialogue which doesn’t require those on our side to start with a premise that you are correct on any of these characterizations has been met with a vehement “Shut Up!”, and now, after days of engaging in savage slander and blood libel, now you wring your hands, and speak softly of civility, either as again, trying to control the speech of others, or in hopes of being treated with greater restraint than you and yours showed me and mine since Saturday morning?
Go to Hell.
Your orgy of hate and blame that started before the bodies even hit the floor of that Tucson Safeway last Saturday revealed everything important to any who still had doubts about who you really are. And I’ll be damned if I’ll be silent and polite about the people who I think are the real danger to America. Especially after they pantsed themselves in front of the country last week.
Our central problem, which is exactly what it was before the Tucson massacre and the orgy of left-wing hatred, is treating the Left the way it deserves — the way it’s earned. That’s far from our natural impulse. Conservatives like civility and tend to practice good decorum even when it’s inappropriate.
Nor is it easy to look into the face of one of these vitriol-spewing leftist ranters and say to oneself, “He’s a bag of bile who thinks he can shut me up by vilifying me and mine,” without either exploding into real violence or doing harm to oneself via the accompanying urge. Fortunately, most of us never get that close to a Keith Olbermann or a Howard Fineman.
So: It’s unproductive to debate them, still worse to spend our energies defending ourselves against their smears, and shooting them is illegal in all fifty states. What, then, must we do?
When it comes to the left’s “civility” lectures, I always say, “You first.”
But, of course their concerns are completely one sided and disingenuous.
As Rush said on his show, yesterday, “civility” is the new word for “shut-up”.
So: It’s unproductive to debate them, still worse to spend our energies defending ourselves against their smears, and shooting them is illegal in all fifty[-seven] states.[you forgot the newly annexed states of denial, hypocrisy, and fantasy that we gained the the fiity-tooers blessed us with Obama’s rule. ;-)] What, then, must we do?
But seriously, Fran. After watching their fevered efforts FAIL this week, to the degree that Dear Leader had to distance himself and pretend to moderation that history shows to be a lie, I think that more people are awake to what the Left is really trying to do, and how they do it than ever before. We saw the legacy media and the left (but I repeat myself) fail to sell the average American on a story that the tellers wanted to be true. I think that is the biggest story of all. A “refudiation” of the opinion makers and shapers, and their willingness to do their fellow-travellers a solid. They are losing their grip on control of the story, and I think that is the best news that the Republic has had since Ronaldus Maximus was in office.
Francis, we keep fighting them in the arena of ideas. The left’s ideas usually fail when held to the light of day.
Most Americans rejected their false Tucson narrative. The remaining MSNBC viewers – the Bill Mahers of the world – are lost causes, sadly.
What can men do against such reckless hate? It’s a good question for which I have no answer when it comes to our politics.
Just keep fighting it, I guess.
“What bothers me is the shameless…yes I mean shameless attempt to impose a self-censorship that they cannot attain by other means, while at the same time, their own calls come on the heels of their manifestation of their own unwillingness to be “civil” and “work together”.
Assuming I’m still permitted to use the metaphor, “Bullseye.”
Censorship is the objective. I think the mistake is to give dignity to the false narrative by indulging it.
This one’s a gem because through haste (literally moments after the shooting), the narrative was so poorly orchestrated. The evolution revealed quite a pitiful purpose: from Palin to the Tea Party, to conservatives generally, to guns, to radio talk show hosts, to anyone that opposes the leftist agenda. Not one bit of critical analysis. Just a call to arms to “make them shut up.”
Another good post BiW. I’ll meet anybody, anytime in the courtroom. But I’d prefer to have you at my table.
What is really disturbing is that so many conservatives are lauding and buying into the therapeutic claptrap served up by Obama.
Do they really think that Obama will hold himself and his supporters to anything that any sentient human being would consider “civil”? They already think they are being too nice and this is with their constant threats of violence and complete fabrications of “facts”. They consider it hate speech when you play back their febrile rantings in context. How dare they be confronted with their own venom and duplicity.
And who do those on the right who are accepting this potemkin promise think will be the arbiters of what is “civil” in this age of when perfectly acceptable criticism of the government and it’s palpable overreach are mischaracterized as racist and extreme.
This is an invitation for conservatives to unilaterally disarm while our adversaries drag out every slander and calumny that occurs to their puerile brains. Putting things in unambiguous terms is not hate speech it’s plain speaking. Right now the left condemn us for over the top rhetoric for us being right about the horrors that are intrinsic in Obama care. To the left just telling the truth is vitriol.
Look at the last part of that speech and you see the nebulous platitudes and strained euphemisms meant to deliberately cloud the mind of the listener. Also notice how he kept on blaming the discourse and then out of the blue he says that the hurly burly of discourse was not to blame then, in a non sequitur worthy of Casey Stengel, he completely reverses field and hitches the tone of the rhetoric to what those who “lost their lives”(sorry Mr Obama they were f’n murdered are you that much in the mindset of the “therapeutic society” that you can’t even be clear about that) might think about the tone of discourse. This is a complete breakdown in logic as why would anyone change a behavior that has no relation to an event. And the so called conservative intelligentsia creamed their pants over “it was not” and failed to recognize the second part which negated it.
Quite frankly any so called judge of civility would quite frankly look a lot like the UN presence in Southern Lebanon where they allow Hezbollah to attack with impunity but constrain Israel from striking back because the Israelis know what would happen if they killed one of the blue helmeted enablers. I don’t have to tell you who would be cast as the Israelis in that scenario.
If they are really stupid they will allow our adversaries define what is “civil” for us to say in response. Of course the only response Obama and his gang accept as civil is “Yes Sir, May I have another.”
He should have stopped after the eulogies of the victims as the rest of his remarks were contradictory and obtuse. What the heck is the “imagination of morality” pray tell. Is that the delusion that allows them to steal ever more dollars from the few people who still have jobs to satisfy their self presumed moral vanity.
Then there was the specious idea that we should temper our rhetoric to be worthy of the the victims. Seriously, you want to talk about cynical that would be it. So now every time we castigate Obama we are insulting the dead. You know they think any criticism is venom and vitriol now they want to essentially prey on our good will to shame us into silence for having an opinion opposite of their deluded agenda.
This was deftly and unctuously done all to the the standing ovation of people who should know better. And then he, about a paragraph later, even more cynically wants to reign in debate by asking if it would comport with the vision of a nine year old little girl. To use this little girl in such a way is utterly depraved. But the again he is a Machiavellian socialist so whatever it takes to defeat his enemies is acceptable.
All this, combined with that imperious chin upturned, look down the nose pose he strikes every time he speaks, makes this far less than what was needed. Comfort for the victims and a setting straight of all the hateful aspersions that have been spewed towards flesh and blood humans. He should have made it emphatically clear that the only one responsible was Loughner. That he did not do as he obliquely implicated regular political intercourse but did not outright condemn the blood libel spewing forth from his supporters. By being ecumenical in his weak condemnation he created an implied a moral equivalence between those who have policy differences with this regime and those who wish to make those who promote those differences into accomplices to murder(paraphrase of Andy McCarthy). I understand that it was supposed to be a memorial service(but because of the intemperance of the speakers and the crowd it failed in that respect too) and it would have been inappropriate to call someone out by name but he could have done so anytime before or since and as far as I know these remarks are all he has said. I guess the teleprompter is getting tuned up for SoTU address.
You are right counselor. These people are shameless in how desperate they are to shut down opposing points of view. We can not fall for such a shabby and cynical ruse.
[…] BlackisWhiteImperialConsigliere has a similar message for the left: Your civility, for decades, has to been to tell us that we are stupid. To mock those who speak for our views. To paint anyone who believes as we do as being stupid, ignorant, and hateful. You have poured scorn, derision, and condescension upon us with the obliviousness of those who never gave a thought to what they were doing. Any attempt at a dialogue which doesn’t require those on our side to start with a premise that you are correct on any of these characterizations has been met with a vehement ”Shut Up!”, and now, after days of engaging in savage slander and blood libel, now you wring your hands, and speak softly of civility, either as again, trying to control the speech of others, or in hopes of being treated with greater restraint than you and yours showed me and mine since Saturday morning? […]
[…] Absolute Must Read from the Imperial Consigliere-Why The Left and Its Latest Call for Civility Can Get Bent In such a situation, where the ideological lines are so clearly drawn, the “civility” that you […]
[…] -Rutherford Person of the Week: James Eric Fuller, victim as well as victimizer? -PanAm Why The Left and Its Latest Call for Civility Can Get Bent -Blackiswhite, Imperial Consigliere And todays Obama Pail goes to….me? -Alfie Voices from the […]
BiW,
Glad to see you fling down the gauntlet in such an impassioned and fluent fashion.
I certainly agree that one cannot reason with these people. They have little understanding of the structure or rules of debate and would use any such opportunity simply as a means of shouting down the opposition (this is shown over and over during any “bipartisan panel discussions”). So many of the so-called Congressional “moderates” are nothing more than Liberals in disguise who lack the courage and moral fiber to show themselves in their true form. I suppose that at least with the rabid Left you know exactly what your are getting.
It is not possible for me to view the Progressive Left as what they portray themselves to be – enemies of the America that the majority of us are willing to be a part of. They are sworn to destroy that America and replace it with a tyrannical “social democracy” that has been the goal of the Marxists for over a century.
I hope that you and I and others of the same persuasion will be able to continue to expose and combat this threat to our nation and our identity. Keep up the good work!