Peter Parisi “questions the timing“.
That sort of thing was pretty popular too, over the last eight years.
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A Call for Civility?By lex, on February 4th, 2009
February 4th, 2009 | Tags: politics | Category: Politics and Culture
33 comments to A Call for Civility? |
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Bad link? “The page cannot be displayed”
Link works now.
Can I get an “Amen”?
Amen!
One commenter over there cracked me up when he objected that “we” should have been less civil to Bush in ’04, cuz he was responsible for “1000s of deaths, etc.”
Translation: Bush was eeeevil, and deserved it. Feh.
Which hardly explains why Bush was heckled at a graduation speech at his alma mater in May 2001:
The claims about “thousands of deaths” is little but retrospective moral sanctimoniousness untethered to reality.
Scroom sideways with an oven hot brick.
I’ve seen this on other blogs. It’s all about how Republicans should just STFD and STFU. Like we haven’t endured endless B.S. for 8 years and we aren’t allowed to even question the left at all on anything.
Because P.BO is The Messiah – so let’s all be nice for the sake of the puppies!!!!111
Like I’ve said before – P.BO will get the same treatment from me that the left gave to Bush – no more, no less.
Pulleesse!
Hardcores on BOTH sides have been rude and nitpicky to each other for at least the last two decades.
Enough with the enless, whiny tit-for-tat stuff from BOTH sides and concentrate on constructive solutions, PLEASE. The silent majority will thank you for it.
George,
Did you publish a similar comment prior to Jan 20th? If not, may I ask why not?
I score a shack for Juvat. The utter hypocrisy of all those currently calling for “civility” and “togetherness” is sickening enough to make even a Jackal wretch.
Umm, Butch? Am I way behind on keeping up with the slang? Could you explain that for me?
Say “scroom” out loud: screw’em.
Scroom!!!!
Exactly.
Of course we’ll be more civilized about it.
b2
Ah, now I understand. Yes, in every orifice, whether it fits or not.
Juval, Virgil and other commenters:
Thanks for making my point. I can’t make a comment here without being accused of being a hypocrite. So what if I am?
No, I didn’t publish a similar comment before Jan. 20. Would you agree with my point if I had? You ignored that I twice said BOTH sides are guilty. I’ve honestly felt this way for years. (Ask my brother, a former P3 pilot and political junkie).
My point is still valid. This childish, pointless tit-for-tat stuff has gone on forever. Demos bashed Bush. Sr., GOPs bashed Clinton, Demos bashed Bush Jr., GOPs bash Obama……
Did anything get accomplished here? Would someone please detail what exactly is gained by the never-ending name calling and suspicion from, again, BOTH sides?
I will accept your “both sides” argument, George, when you can show me a single example of the “assisnation chic” phenomenon which we have been forced to endure over the last eight years. I will accept it if you can show me, during a telethon for a natural disaster, say in FL or the Midwest, a celebrity accusing anyone on the left of “Not caring about white people”. I will accept it when you can show me anyone who pressed for legal actions against Clinton or Carter after they left office. Until then, your attempt to apply moral equivilence to grossly unequal quantities will be view for what it is; an attempt to silence dissent now that the left controls all the levers of power.
Oh, and we have been told incessantly for the last eight years that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. Well, meet the new patriots!
Yeah, sure, someone has to be the first to call it quits. And more than likely, it will be the GOP adults that capitulate to the ever-adolescent democrats. And, yet again, they will get a shiv in their backs for their effort.
I don’t recall any Republican ever wishing death on a member of a Democrat’s Administration.
Like the Democrats did when Tony Snow was diagnosed with cancer. The fever-swamps teemed with people hoping he died a horribly painful death.
Have Republicans ever referred to a Democrat president as a dictatorial mass-murderer like the Democrats referred to Bush?
Who put up the effigy of Bush on his last day in office, right in front of the White House, and threw shoes at it?
And who booed our outgoing president while he sat behind the incoming one?
What kind of people do that? Democrats.
I seem to recall someone here making a comment about being happy about Ted Kennedy’s seizure and/or brain cancer. I may have the exact details wrong but the point remains.
Let’s put it this way – where do vows to give back to the Dems everything they handed out over the past 8 years, no more and no more less, fit in the equation?
“But Mom, he started it!!1!!”
Exactly, Michelle.
The point is NOT to “stiffle dissent,” but to grow up and end the name calling and “he hit me first” childishness. What does the name-caller gain? If you disagree with something, why not express it based on facts, not emotions?
I agree that civility is desirable and a much lacking part of discourse in this country. I think what most are trying to say here George is that it is pretty damned ironic to hear the call for civility being so championed by those who, as recently as the inauguration, could not , nor if they did not personally join in – criticize their fellow travelers who did , restrain their cheap shots at a departing President Bush.
It makes us angry – damned angry – to be told to act civil when confronted with such acts of childish disrespect for, not only a man who we think histroy will judge quite different than conventional popular opinion currently does, but the Office of The President as well.
I do my best to avoid cheap shots and silly name calling, not always sucessfully, as my very real and passionate anger at the left overides my ability to remain above the fray.
I’d like to see more debate on the merits of the various proposals; in the House I’d like to see ANY debate on the merits of the proposals; but that doesn’t seem to be the way the leader chooses to manage her, and our countries, affairs in that body. Makes it difficult to remain, civil, and such.
If civility is what they want – let the debate begin. And so on it goes to a very bad end I suspect.
DSD—the Double Standard Democrats. Let us make no mistake about who they are.
I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.”
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying about the left (I still hear some of it up here and I think it’s pretty ridiculous) but yeah, *we* are asking *you* to be the better people, to rise above the fray and make sure you’re not the pot calling the kettle black. Who will history judge more kindly then? And which way will be better for your country (and hence the ROW)?
I know that some may question my place in this conversation but…
For anybody, ANYBODY, to sit there and attempt to say, with a straight face, that “both sides” have been “equally” churlish towards each other, would take a Lake Superior-sized vessel full of unmitigated gall. Do you think were G-D fools here, George? There are as many people who comment here with advanced academic degrees as on any academic blog and with one helluva lot more real-world experience and common sense. And many, many of us have traveled the globe extensively thanks to Uncle Sam, so were hardly cloistered children.
And emotions? EMOTIONS!!!!! That’s ALL, ALL, I repeat, ALL the Obama campaign was based on–pure emotion. I would challenge you to provide Obama’s detailed, fact-based plans for ANYTHING he proposed other than vague generalities.
George, those who comment here are pretty well grounded in the very definitely “fact-based” realities of life or death–it’s what we do/did for a living. Ignore the “facts” in our profession and you usually end up dead or severely maimed–usually sooner rather than later–so we’re pretty good–better than the average bear I would hazard the guess–at separating emotion and ephemera from reality.
So for you to caution/plead/request
us to be “civil” and “unemotional” in our arguments when any sentient humanoid over the age of twelve and possessed of at least a double-digit IQ would have to note that the sheer volume of “uncivil” criticisms
(however loosely defined) of the side opposite has come from mainly one side of the political spectrum. And for you to suggest otherwise is an insult to our intelligence–both on an individual and collective basis. So don’t waltz in here spouting euphemisms about civil discourse unless and until you offer proof that you have done a content analysis of say, Daily Kos, DU and TPM for the past eight years and compared it to this blog and any two other milblogs you wish to pick. When you’ve done THAT, please report back your findings and if they support your pov, THEN carry on about equivalence–until that day has arrived I think this guy, for one, will pretty much ignore anything you have to say
regarding the matter.
I remain an unrepentant advocate of
serious ridicule of buffoons and charlatans like Obama. If that means I’m copping a “‘tude”–deal with it.
Everyone is of course free to follow their conscience, but for my own part I hope not be the first to descend to the same levels of discourtesy, dishonesty and vitriol as have so many of those whom I disagree with. Many of these have infantilized by their passions. Doing so generates a very great deal of heat, but not much light and lowers us to the level of that we hold contemptible. It also makes it hard to get anything useful done, and in life – as in politics – getting it done is the art of the possible.
That’s not a get out of jail free card for misconduct, oafishness and insult, nor is it a prescription for turning the other cheek. Long time readers know that I can be provoked when people choose to be provocative.
People of good will must be allowed to disagree without being disagreeable. The “good will” bit is an important caveat, for me.
“I will not be neutral as between the fire and the fire brigade!”
——–Winston Churchill
I.E., I ain’t buyin’ the “moral equivalence” bat-guano that George is spouting.
..and although it is true that many and numerous are the dicks on both sides of the equation, i’m trying to be fairly non-partisan in my dick-itude.
it just seems that there are louder and more vociferous dicks in the one direction than the other.
What RetRsvMike said…..
And while I’m warming to the topic, I think it takes a special kind of impudence to, right off the bat, admonish everyone here (as though we were children) to “Pulleesse” be nicey-nice. Politics ain’t, as the saying goes, bean-bag, and this is not a post-grad seminar in Poli-Sci (although there are quite a few of us who comment here qualified to teach one.)
I, for one, do not feel that baseless charges convicting those who comment here of engaging in “endless, whiny, tit-for-tat stuff” as a first comment out of the box is a demonstration of noble “good-will” at all. Rather it reveals a thin-skinned inability to endure normal, earnest political discourse if it is critical of one’s side and simultaneous contempt for honest, even harsh, debate/critique from the other side dishonestly masquerading as calls for “civility.” Either that or you’re blinder than the bats that deposit the guano–even if honestly in error.
I guess I would feel a whole lot better about the likes of people like you, George, and those who hold similar views when you offer your ministrations had I lived in a cave for
the last eight years and was totally unaware of the real-world slime-job the other side (yours, I take it) has pulled. Ever read the racist, lewed, sexist comments made by your side about Michelle Malkin, George? Let alone the death threats? Civility does not permit their repetition here. Criticize some of our more snarky comments if you must, but to suggest that our side of the fence–here or elsewhere–has approached anything like the sustained invective hurled from the left is insulting on it’s face.
George is welcome to give as good as he gets in the spirit of honest, earnest debate. as far as I’m concerned. But when he accuses us here of childishness? well…my hackles are raised. And when you further insult our intelligence with a straight face with the equivalence bit? ……And we’re supposed to grin and agree like good little boys and girls?
Puulleesse……….
Hey VX, An impressive display of verbal fireworks indeed…you made your point…suggest you let it go and await a response, if any… I’m not sure George deserved such a vituperative rejoinder…but then again it’s you and it’s to be expected …after all you are one old ( Sweet Jesus you have two years on me ) pissed-off Zoomie Pecker-Wood with way to much time on your hands…verdad ? Best
Hey, George, why don’t you stroll over here and try that civility sthick. Report back to us on how it goes down.
Snake/
Way, way too much time. Besides, it’s raining here in del Rey right now–no tennis or links for me today–but I DO have my trusty Haitian Barbancourt 5-star at my side…………….As Jackie Gleason used to jokingly say: “I can understand day-long benders–but this constant sip, sip, sip, has GOT to stop!”
Btw, I LIKE snakes–one of my old squadrons was the 78th TFS Bushmasters–call sign “Snake,” so named because it was formed up in Panama in the 20′s. Bushmasters, native to Panama, are supposedly 3rd most deadly snakes in world behind Aus. Tiger snake and Black Mambas. Not that anyone that’s bitten by any of the three–or even a Cobra or cotten-mouth for that matter–would notice the more subtle aspects of their rankings….
Quick story. We thought it’d be neat to chrome a 25lb practice bomb and coil a real (but obviously dead) Bushmaster
around it with bomb going into wall-mounted shield/plaque at a 45 angle with head snarling out above rear of bomb’s tail-fins. Was to be mounted in the O Club. So we found a taxidermist in Ipswich (we were stationed 90mi north-east of London in East Anglia.) and called Panama to get one shipped. Comes the day we sent one of our guys down by train to Heathrow to meet the shipment. Well they had shipped it LIVE, (one ea.), in a close-knit BURLAP BAG! (one ea.) The snake was NOT happy and the bag was thrashing around more than just a little. Poor guy had to tote it across London carrying the thrashing snake to the train station and then ride with it in his compartment all way back from London! LOL. The Mission WAS accomplished, however, and it turned out ever bit as impressive as hoped for–stayed there for over a decade I’m told until the skin finally rotted away.
“The sun goes down….the sun comes up….But snakes just stay snakes.”
——–”B.C.”, circa 1970
With the whole gospel-of-tolerance thing goin’ around these days, you *should* expect the press / media to not make it personal but they surely did with GWB. The media in politics has always been rough sport but it has found new lows. Rock bottom and still digging.
While I’m at it, the whole “tolerance” thing is reversed. It should be:
-Be egalitarian toward people
-Be elitist toward ideas
The gospel-of-tolerance has it backwards. All ideas do not have equal merit.