lessons i have learned from liberals
When I first decided that I wanted to try my hand at blogging, the whole idea made me a little nervous. Putting one's thoughts, opinions and beliefs on the world wide web for all to see is just a little bit intimidating, and I had a concern about the whole thing. I knew going in that a blog about politics and religion would spark debate. My concern was, do I have the intelligence/knowledge to hold up against opposing viewpoints? Would I be able to adequately defend my positions, or would I wilt, intellectually, in the face of what I was sure was going to be brilliant opposition. Don't misunderstand me. It's not that I think myself to be a dolt. I am college educated and, although I am the third-smartest (out of three!) "kid" in my family (I have one brother and one sister), that doesn't mean that I am stupid. It's just that I have a pretty realistic view of my own intellectual capabilities. There are millions of people smarter than me.
Well, this whole blogging experience has caused my thinking to evolve somewhat on the issue of intellect. I am still very realistic about my own abilities--I'm above average intellectually, but I pay attention to world affairs more than most people. No, the evolution in my thinking has to do with the quality of debate offered up by liberals. This is a part of the blogging experience that has left me somewhat disappointed. Over and over, the "debate" offered up by the liberals who visit my blog has been completely devoid of anything approaching factual material. For the most part, the liberal rebuttal to my positions has focused on potty talk, personal insults, and lies. That last part--the liberal lies--has been the most surprising thing of all. They aren't even good lies! It's all stuff that is transparently false, so that it doesn't take any effort or mental gymnastics to refute the lies.
This all brings me to my reply to the comment at
http://christianconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/02/problem-lies-in-islamism-not-us.html
Take a look at the post, and then read the comment from Anonymous. I read that comment and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Do you actually screen any of your thoughts before they come rolling out for all to see?" This comment is so typical of the liberal comments I receive, that I want to make an example of it.
Anonymous says that there are no liberals who self-censor so that they don't offend radical Islam. Anonymous says that there are no liberals who would forfeit our own earned rights as we bow to Islam's judgement of what we can say and do in our own country. Anonymous says that liberals don't want to consult Islamics out of sensitivity. Anonymous says that it is President Bush who does all of these things, and that Rabbi Spero is simply a hate-mongering member of Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy." Wow! So many easily-refutable liberal lies, so little time! Let's try some facts, shall we?
Look at www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20622. The ultra-ultra liberal United Nations agreed to investigate the "racism and Islamophobia" demonstrated by the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad.
Look at www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/leoblog/archives/060308/
postcartoon _censorship.htm
Liberal colleges censored their own student newspapers so as not to offend Muslims. Real newspapers censored the story of imams using fake pictures to stir up anti-Americanism. Read this from the last link: Get ready for a wave of pro-Muslim censorship, both voluntary and involuntary.
• After protests by Muslim students at Oregon State University, editors of the student newspaper decided to give Muslims the right to editorial approval over articles that affect them. A February 8 column in the Daily Barometer had accused some Muslims of acting barbarously in reaction to publication of the Danish cartoons. Muslim and Arab students held a vigil in protest, and a blizzard of complaining E-mails swept in. DD Bixby, editor of the paper, at first spoke for freedom of the press.
"For me," she wrote, "it would be journalistically irresponsible to only print columns with which no one disagreed." But as protests increased, she began to sing a different song. "The pain that [the column] caused ... did not subside with time. It just kind of festered," she said. So she and her editors began letting Muslim students check the paper's copy, and on February 28, they deleted a paragraph from a piece to be published the next day.
You know, that kind of answers all of Anonymous' points all at once, doesn't it? Well, on second thought, no it doesn't. Anonymous said that it was President Bush who was guilty of all of the above. Ahh...no he wasn't. Open a newspaper, anonymous. Bush is the guy who calls them "Islamofascists" and who has sent 21,000 more troops over there to kick some Muslim tail. I don't think that qualifies as being overly sensitive to Muslims.
Anonymous also said that the right is making stuff up to generate hate against liberals. Again, Anonymous, you are incorrect. We don't have to stir anything up. All we have to do is wait for liberals to open their mouths.
Well, this whole blogging experience has caused my thinking to evolve somewhat on the issue of intellect. I am still very realistic about my own abilities--I'm above average intellectually, but I pay attention to world affairs more than most people. No, the evolution in my thinking has to do with the quality of debate offered up by liberals. This is a part of the blogging experience that has left me somewhat disappointed. Over and over, the "debate" offered up by the liberals who visit my blog has been completely devoid of anything approaching factual material. For the most part, the liberal rebuttal to my positions has focused on potty talk, personal insults, and lies. That last part--the liberal lies--has been the most surprising thing of all. They aren't even good lies! It's all stuff that is transparently false, so that it doesn't take any effort or mental gymnastics to refute the lies.
This all brings me to my reply to the comment at
http://christianconservatives.blogspot.com/2007/02/problem-lies-in-islamism-not-us.html
Take a look at the post, and then read the comment from Anonymous. I read that comment and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Do you actually screen any of your thoughts before they come rolling out for all to see?" This comment is so typical of the liberal comments I receive, that I want to make an example of it.
Anonymous says that there are no liberals who self-censor so that they don't offend radical Islam. Anonymous says that there are no liberals who would forfeit our own earned rights as we bow to Islam's judgement of what we can say and do in our own country. Anonymous says that liberals don't want to consult Islamics out of sensitivity. Anonymous says that it is President Bush who does all of these things, and that Rabbi Spero is simply a hate-mongering member of Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy." Wow! So many easily-refutable liberal lies, so little time! Let's try some facts, shall we?
Look at www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20622. The ultra-ultra liberal United Nations agreed to investigate the "racism and Islamophobia" demonstrated by the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad.
Look at www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/leoblog/archives/060308/
postcartoon _censorship.htm
Liberal colleges censored their own student newspapers so as not to offend Muslims. Real newspapers censored the story of imams using fake pictures to stir up anti-Americanism. Read this from the last link: Get ready for a wave of pro-Muslim censorship, both voluntary and involuntary.
• After protests by Muslim students at Oregon State University, editors of the student newspaper decided to give Muslims the right to editorial approval over articles that affect them. A February 8 column in the Daily Barometer had accused some Muslims of acting barbarously in reaction to publication of the Danish cartoons. Muslim and Arab students held a vigil in protest, and a blizzard of complaining E-mails swept in. DD Bixby, editor of the paper, at first spoke for freedom of the press.
"For me," she wrote, "it would be journalistically irresponsible to only print columns with which no one disagreed." But as protests increased, she began to sing a different song. "The pain that [the column] caused ... did not subside with time. It just kind of festered," she said. So she and her editors began letting Muslim students check the paper's copy, and on February 28, they deleted a paragraph from a piece to be published the next day.
You know, that kind of answers all of Anonymous' points all at once, doesn't it? Well, on second thought, no it doesn't. Anonymous said that it was President Bush who was guilty of all of the above. Ahh...no he wasn't. Open a newspaper, anonymous. Bush is the guy who calls them "Islamofascists" and who has sent 21,000 more troops over there to kick some Muslim tail. I don't think that qualifies as being overly sensitive to Muslims.
Anonymous also said that the right is making stuff up to generate hate against liberals. Again, Anonymous, you are incorrect. We don't have to stir anything up. All we have to do is wait for liberals to open their mouths.
posted by hondo at 9:25 PM
4 Comments:
And once again Hondo, your statements are simply not true. I, Anonymous, never said “President Bush does all of these things” or that Rabbi Spero is a member of anything, or anything about conspiracies or anything about Hillary. So “refute” those if you like. That is “Hondus-Operandi” on your blog; take statements of others and stretch them until they no longer resemble the truth in order to make your point.
I suppose that you can find individual instances of the questions I asked, that technically meet the challenge when I say “Which liberal said XXX?” Although to do so, you have to resort to Horowitz’s conservative FrontPageMag.com spin on the UN’s agreement to investigate; hardly convincing evidence on the scale that Rabbi Spero has suggested. And your second piece of evidence is from an opinion column about a college that Hondo labels “liberal,” that responded to a protest by Muslim students. Again, not exactly a mouthpiece for all that is liberal.
There are plenty of examples of bizarre, immoral, and acts and statements by illegal conservative. Are these representative of all conservatives? Of course not. Your reader “Henry Martin” seems to be a voice of reason among you conservatives. But the one thing the rest of you conservative bloggers/writers/broadcasters seem to have in common is your tendency to jump to false conclusions about liberals, with scant facts, injected with a good dose of militant hated. And the numerous examples from Coulter, Malkin, etc, are well documented. The common thread that runs through the loudest of you conservatives is hate.
As long as you too continue this conservative tradition of jumping to militant conclusions on false and errant logic, I do not think that you will get the serious liberal debaters that you desire, but rather attract the likes of the racist CofCC (which by the way has been aligned with the Dobson’s Family Research Council president Tony Perkins).
The Rabbi Spero, in his writing you linked to, indented this statement as if made by a liberal: “If we simply demur and mollify, appease and “understand,” this whole nightmare will simply go away, they contend, and we can go back to our business of having fun.” But he doesn’t attribute the statement to anyone, which leads me to believe that he is just making up what he believes the liberal position is, even though these are the Rabbi’s words and not that of any liberal. Why make them up? Is it because making up false statements suits his argument better than reality-based statements by liberals? So Spero is making up statements and you credit his article as “straight talk” while you call my response “lies.” Hmmm…
I stand by my points:
- There is no double standard in the treatment of Muslims vs Christians by liberals.
- Liberals are not self-censoring to avoid offending Muslims
- Liberals are not for forfeiting rights to bow to Islam
- Liberals are not suggesting we consult with a local imam or Wahhabi superior
Rabbis Spero’s characterizations are not the position liberals. For conservatives to say this is ridiculous and it is your tactic to scare American voters into voting conservative. And it ties in with your other conservative tactic of trying to characterize democrats as being on the side of the terrorist.
And yes Bush is closely affiliated with the Saudi royal family, as has been so well documented. Also documented are acts by Bush that appeased the Saudis.
Anonymous stands by his points:
1. There is no double standard in the treatment of Muslims vs Christians by liberals. WRONG! See:
http://newsbusters.org/node/3918
Also see: www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/double_standards_toward_islam.html Also see: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004440.htm Also see: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52335
2. Liberals are not self censoring. WRONG!
See: http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1184 Also see: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/6818.html Also see: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/02/08/cstillwell.DTL
3. Liberals are not for forfeiting rights. WRONG! I believe that the above links address that point rather appropriately.
4. Liberals are not suggesting that we consult Muslims to avoid offending them. WRONG! See: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/case/705.html Also see: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21766
Those are the coherent points you made in your latest comment, Anonymous. The rest was a lot of blather about how "not nice" conservatives are. Sound and fury, signifying nothing!
Anonymous, I would like to ask you to do me a favor. Take a look at the links I have provided. Thoughtfully read the information. Then tell me if the information is true or false. Don't bore me by changing the subject, or by saying the documentation I provided "doesn't count" because you don't like the sources. Don't launch into personal attacks. Just tell me if my information is true or false. That's simple enough for you, isn't it? If you say my info is false, you had better have something a little smarter than the bestiality humor I keep deleting to back up your point. Otherwise, do us both a favor and just stay quiet.
Okay Hondo, I looked at the links you provided. Lets discuss them as they relate to my four points:
1. Double Standards
Newsbuster – There is no double standard shown here. The NYT did not side with Muslims. The writer made the point that the cartoons were published at a time that was politically sensitive to immigration and the writer reported a propaganda expert’s opinion that the cartoons caricatures are comparable to racist cartoons. The NYT writer did not say that the cartoons should not have been published, or otherwise “sided” with anyone. The link you sourced is to the “exposing and combating liberal media bias” Newsbusters who have tried to argue the NYT has a double standard, but Newsbusters fails to make that point.
Realclear politics – Your link doesn’t work, so I can’t comment
Michelle Malkin – She is whining because CNN chose not to show the cartoon out of “respect” to Muslims. How does CNN’s decision not to show the cartoons relate to liberals allegedly having a double standard? Are you saying that CNN is the policy mouthpiece for liberals?
WND.com – These guys have a beef with some high school who incorporate dressing and acting like a Muslim into their study on that culture. Again, how does that relate to liberals? Are you saying that the school is mouthpiece of liberal policy?
2. Self Censoring
SPLC.org – This is not about liberal self-censoring. This is about college newspapers, some who published the cartoons, some who didn’t. So what?
TheFire.org – This is an article about cartoons being “anonymously torn down.” The article doesn’t address liberal policy at all. It does address censorship (though not attributed to liberals) saying “censorship in response to displays of the cartoons has been rare.”
SFGATE.com – This article criticizes “political cowrds” which it identifies the Bush administration as one, alongside Bill Clinton. There is nothing in this article about liberals self-censoring.
3. Forfeiting rights – Your links do not show any liberal argument or position for forfeiting rights.
4. Consultation with Muslim spiritualleaders
theFire.org & frontpagemag - What do these articles have to do with consulting imams or Wahhabi superiors in Arabia. I can’t find a single instance of that in these articles. If I missed it, please point it out! And the frontpagemag reports on a self-identified liberal college instructor who continued to post the cartoons in her college which is evidence against everyone of your other points.
Hondo, you have posted links that are as close as you can find to my points but they simply do not provide any direct evidence about liberals consulting, forfeiting, censoring, or double standards! And what about my point about Rabbi Spero seemingly making up a liberal quote?
Is this really the best you can do?
Anonymous says that an article I cited entitled "Double Standard: NYT Sides With Muslims, But 'Piss Christ' Foes Were Compared With Nazis" has nothing to do with double standards. The Michelle alkin site I referenced compared CNN's refusal to show Danish cartoons, out of respect for Muslims, with CNN's airing of material offensive to Christians. But Anonymous says that isn't about double standards either. Anonymous says that the article I cited about some college newspapers printing the Danish cartoons, and some college newspapers deciding not to--out of respect for Muslims--has nothing to do with self-censorship. Anonymous says that public schools, which won't let students so much as mention the name of Jesus at graduation ceremonies, but will let students participate in class work where they recite Muslim prayers, are not engaging in a double standard.
Anonymous, a wise man once told me that there are people in this world who will look at a cocker spanial and SWEAR that it's a horse. And they will believe it! The man told me to never argue with people like that because they're nuts! Anonymous, I am done arguing with you. You are either being intentionally obtuse, or you have reading comprehension difficulties, or you are insane. I don't particularly care which of those applies to you, but honest debate with you is impossible. Good bye.
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