True Republicans.

Don't paint all of us with Ann Coulter's tainted brush

Interesting viewpoint. I wish all Republicans would take the time to read this.
................................
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4032514.html

detano inipo wrote:

Interesting viewpoint. I wish all Republicans would take the time to read this.
................................
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4032514.html

Anyone who perceives that "Republicans are against almost everything from abortion to homosexuals. And nasty about it to boot, " is an ass. Mr. Cooper may find such regard hard to swallow, but I couldn't care less.

So tell us what Conservative Republicans stand for as opposed to what they stand against. Delineate how those stances are not divisive in the land as a whole. Surely Conservative Republicans love their country, that is not divisive. Those on the Left also love our country, why some of us actually served in the US Armed Forces, as you and some your political brethren actually did, like um, well, never mind. Surely Conservative Republicans love the god they worship, that too is not a divisive topic in America, the land of churches on nearly every corner and where polls proclaim 90% believe in God. But, what do Conservative Republicans stand for otherwise that does not set them against other human beings who are just trying to make it in this world without too much of a hassle?

Ms. Coulter makes a fine living being controversial and without diatribes like Cooper's would be less affluent than she is today. Remember when you were a kid and your older brother or sister teased you unmercifully? Usually one or both of your parents told you that by reacting with rage or outrage to the siblings teasing, you were only encouraging it? Liberal reaction to Coulter encourages it. She wouldn't be half as popular with her readers and fans if they did not know that she was getting under the skin of Liberals.

When someone repeatedly describes as a monolithic entity without diversity of thought and opinion an entire swath of the political spectrum and calls such people traitors, treasonous, and, dangerous to America, people take notice.

Is Cooper's disdain for Coulter any more or less justified because he is a Republican? Cooper no more speaks for Republicans, despite his non-scientific studies, than does Coulter.

I happen to agree that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter, Hannity or Limbaugh, but that doesn't mean they do not enjoy all three.

Then one should not be opposed nor sneeringly attack those of us who enjoy the theatrical truths revealed by a Michael Moore.

Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh are, essentially, entertainers. With the possible exception of Michael Moore, there are no Liberal entertainers who generate such passionate disregard among the Right. Why do Liberals find right-wing entertainers not only extremely offensive but dangerous? Is it because they appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, or is because they were more easily teased by their older siblings when they were kids?

Your pop psychology is wanting, really. What about those Liberals who are the eldest?

You should edit your remarks before posting them. After all, if Liberals actually do appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, one would think they would act upon such an appreciation and do likewise. Unfortunately, the mainstream Left does not throw the rhetorical bombs found in the Right Wing media, at least I have seen nothing from the Left comparable to Coutler's demeaning New York residents as cowards who would cut and run from terrorists, nor their media musings on how much better the world would be if someone flew a plane into the New York Time building. Perhaps somewhere a blogster from the Left has mentioned his wish that al Queada would wipe out the Wall Street Journal building, but I have yet to hear of it.


Cooper seems to get the point that Coulter & Co. are, as he puts it, "show business," but he can't resist raising them to a higher level by denouncing, and, more importantly to him, denying their influence.

The ability to influence public debate and intercourse by right wing talk radio/tv commentators is not in doubt by you is it? The three-headed monster you mention are those who act as launching pads for trial balloons released into public debate by the Right Wing to shift the boundary conditions of public policies and discourse. So yes, when they speak of Liberals as those who hate America, such nonsense mainstreams thoughts like that with its accompanying potential for violence against Liberals as traitors.


Cooper is like your Grandfather who told you he walked to and from school each day - both ways uphill! I guess in that sense he is a true conservative. He liked it the way it was when Northeastern Republicans ruled his party. Socially liberal and pro-business. How he managed to obtain a position in the Reagan administration is interesting, but then he was a deputy press secretary, and what do they do? The assistant of a mouthpiece? Hardly anything even approaching a policy making position.

Walk up hill both ways? That is how you describe Cooper or his essay? My god man you have been sipping from Tommy Friedman's fermented bottle of loony non-sequiter metaphors once again. Apparently, you don't like what Cooper said, and as is your wont, you attacked the man himself and his past as a nobody, oddly a nobody who carried water in an administration you have been on record admiring. In one fell swoop you dismissed his perspective as useless because all he did was hold a job in an Republican administration. Boy, I wonder what the response would be from the likes of you for me using such a stupid and cavalier ploy to dismiss positions I abhor?


Never-the-less he, apparently, is a Liberal's Republican. Good for him. Of course his Liberal admirers only admire him because of his disdain for Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh.

Actually, since you brought up your own pop psychology, permit me to apply somewhat more useful a description for this discourse; one thing about Copper, he is an adult and does not display the adolescent traits that are found so often in the rhetoric from the Right Wing.

Liberals are handicapped by their capacity to appreciate the other side's point of view (which waters down their conviction), while red meat conservatives are hampered by no such considerations. There is an extensive body of psychological research that suggests the two outlooks express two different stages of cognitive development.

The earlier stage, called in some circles "concrete operational", typically emerges during the latent period (ages roughly 7-14), and is characterized by identification with one's social role, and an unquestioning regard for the rules laid down by one's social affiliation. It lends itself to an ethnocentric, mythological worldview - my country (tribe, religion, team) right or wrong. God is on our side.

Then around adolescence there (hopefully) develops the capacity for critical thought. Guided by reason a person can see that his or her particular social group has no monopoly on truth or goodness. One begins to view the handed down rules with a critical eye.

This stage is called "formal operational" and it is here that one begins to think for oneself, draw one's own conclusions about the nature of reality. Of course things are not so cut and dried at this stage. Doubt begins to set in (hence the liberal's debilitating dilemma).

But because a person is now able to take the abstract leap outside one's own skin and see things from the other person's perspective, it lends itself to a broader, more global outlook -- we're all in this together.

Hence a Reagan era Republican would naturally subscribe to the received cold war mythology -- America in the white hat; Russia= evil empire -- while a liberal of that period might be "soft on communism" because he could see that for all its flaws the Marxist outlook was not without its virtues. The same cold war mentality drives Bush's "War on Terror" which any rational person can see fronts a very dubious agenda.

Bush's declaration "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" is classic ethnocentric thinking. It makes no allowance for subtlety. We're the good guys; they're the bad guys, and that's all there is to it. And anyone wise to the fact that even bad guys can mount a valid critique is guilty of heresy, treason, comforting the enemy, etc.

If you place yourself on that path you have placed yourself outside the fold and beyond the pale, you are one of "them", one of the devil's party, among the banished and the damned.

It might also be reflective of the two mindsets that some of us are content to sit in front of the TV and receive our marching orders as Consumers (that being our designated social role), while others of us know enough to feel insulted by that demeaning arrangement.

Be that as it may, the point is that it's a question of mental development. It does no good to hurl vituperations at those on the other side of the divide. They lack the necessary equipment to understand your position.

I refer to the different phases as the closed fist and the open hand. The former is strong and powerful, capable of force and smashing things up, whereas the open hand works with fingers in harmony to produce and create.

Moderates may be the potential saviors of humanity, but they are boring. They do not inspire and they do not entertain. They do not stand for principle but for compromise, and this may or may not be how they can save us, but it will never be the way to lead us.

Well, as indicated above, compromise is an indication of an adult mind dealing with the world as it is instead of how one wishes it were. I side with the adults. You can go join the little children if that is your desire.

A couple of Cooper canards:

How many times have we heard that the American people are ready for a responsible moderate government that gets the job done? Is Cooper the first Oracle to render such a prophesy? Hardly. Clearly the American people have not, are not and probably never will be ready to come together in local and national elections and put in place moderate, practical governments across the land. Moderates are boring and have a tough time getting votes.

Well, again, if we have moderation coming from the Bushevik administration where is it? And one of the ways that the GOP has used to gain votes has been to be divisive and accentuate the minor differences between most political positions and raise them to philosophical, moral, and ethical stances found only by fanatics on the far side of a Holy War. It has helped them win elections, but simultaneously cheapened and coarsened public life.

But that is something you are for, right?

"If only the good could be clever
and only the clever be good
the world would be better than ever
we thought that it possibly could.
But alas, things seldom or never
turn out as they properly should
for the good are so hard on the clever
and the clever so rude to the good."
Or as Rodney King put it: Can't we all just get along?

At any rate, there appears to be considerable evidence that susceptibility to the Conservative Republican point of view of the Coulters, et. al. has less to do with perverse and willful stupidity than with delayed cognitive development, a wide learning curve. You don't expect your four-year-old to give up pretending he's Superman; I don't expect Busheviks to either.



Coulter is the only Republican on the face of the earth who might criticize 9/11 widows.

When did 9/11 widows achieve sainthood? How is it their their tragedy has imparted perfection of position when none other have? The recent Tsunami left the world with far more widows than 9/11. Is there some reason why their tragedy is not deserving of the same sanctification of the tragedy of 9/11?

I have deeply felt sympathy for everyone who lost a loved one as a result of 9/11, but it goes no further. Whether conservative or liberal in their politics, the fact that they senselessly lost a loved one does not in any way render their opinions more important or more relevant than those of anyone else. I'm not sure how anyone of intelligence might think otherwise.

Cooper's notion that Coulter is "against" grieving widows...is idiotic.

Coulter uses a broadsword when a scalpel will do, but this doesn't mean that there is no basis to any of her positions.

I happen to agree that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter, Hannity or Limbaugh, but that doesn't mean they do not enjoy all three.

Interesting post, Finn.

Mind if I respond?

detano inipo wrote:

Interesting viewpoint. I wish all Republicans would take the time to read this.
................................
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4032514.html

Anyone who perceives that "Republicans are against almost everything from abortion to homosexuals. And nasty about it to boot, " is an ass. Mr. Cooper may find such regard hard to swallow, but I couldn't care less.

So tell us what Conservative Republicans stand for as opposed to what they stand against. Delineate how those stances are not divisive in the land as a whole. Surely Conservative Republicans love their country, that is not divisive. Those on the Left also love our country, why some of us actually served in the US Armed Forces, as you and some your political brethren actually did, like um, well, never mind. Surely Conservative Republicans love the god they worship, that too is not a divisive topic in America, the land of churches on nearly every corner and where polls proclaim 90% believe in God. But, what do Conservative Republicans stand for otherwise that does not set them against other human beings who are just trying to make it in this world without too much of a hassle?

I don't think I'll jump through your rhetorical hoops kuvy. Again, anyone who believes that "Republicans are against almost everything from abortion to homosexuals. And nasty about it to boot, " is an ass.

Ms. Coulter makes a fine living being controversial and without diatribes like Cooper's would be less affluent than she is today. Remember when you were a kid and your older brother or sister teased you unmercifully? Usually one or both of your parents told you that by reacting with rage or outrage to the siblings teasing, you were only encouraging it? Liberal reaction to Coulter encourages it. She wouldn't be half as popular with her readers and fans if they did not know that she was getting under the skin of Liberals.

When someone repeatedly describes as a monolithic entity without diversity of thought and opinion an entire swath of the political spectrum and calls such people traitors, treasonous, and, dangerous to America, people take notice.

Truth enough, and I'm sure that when your brother called you "Stinky," or "Pinhead," you took notice as well. Of course people notice Coulter, which works well for her because that seems to be one of her foremost goals. The point I have raised is how people react to her name calling, and how that reaction can fuel her vitriol (Are you sure you never got this talk from one of your parents?).

Is Cooper's disdain for Coulter any more or less justified because he is a Republican? Cooper no more speaks for Republicans, despite his non-scientific studies, than does Coulter.

I happen to agree that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter, Hannity or Limbaugh, but that doesn't mean they do not enjoy all three.

Then one should not be opposed nor sneeringly attack those of us who enjoy the theatrical truths revealed by a Michael Moore.


Really? Why not?

Are you suggesting that because I believe that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter et al, and might enjoy the riffs of her and her peers, that intellectual integrity should prevent me from being opposed to or criticizing (sneeringly or otherwise) folks who enjoy Michael Moore's work?

You'll have to draw a straighter path for me, because I can't follow your logic.

Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh are, essentially, entertainers. With the possible exception of Michael Moore, there are no Liberal entertainers who generate such passionate disregard among the Right. Why do Liberals find right-wing entertainers not only extremely offensive but dangerous? Is it because they appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, or is because they were more easily teased by their older siblings when they were kids?

Your pop psychology is wanting, really. What about those Liberals who are the eldest?


It's a sarcastic analogy kuvy, not an attempt to explain the complexity of the Liberal mind. Don't hurt yourself trying to come up with a rebuttal of it.

You should edit your remarks before posting them. After all, if Liberals actually do appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, one would think they would act upon such an appreciation and do likewise. Unfortunately, the mainstream Left does not throw the rhetorical bombs found in the Right Wing media, at least I have seen nothing from the Left comparable to Coutler's demeaning New York residents as cowards who would cut and run from terrorists, nor their media musings on how much better the world would be if someone flew a plane into the New York Time building. Perhaps somewhere a blogster from the Left has mentioned his wish that al Queada would wipe out the Wall Street Journal building, but I have yet to hear of it.



Cooper seems to get the point that Coulter & Co. are, as he puts it, "show business," but he can't resist raising them to a higher level by denouncing, and, more importantly to him, denying their influence.

The ability to influence public debate and intercourse by right wing talk radio/tv commentators is not in doubt by you is it? The three-headed monster you mention are those who act as launching pads for trial balloons released into public debate by the Right Wing to shift the boundary conditions of public policies and discourse. So yes, when they speak of Liberals as those who hate America, such nonsense mainstreams thoughts like that with its accompanying potential for violence against Liberals as traitors.

I don't doubt the ability of any public figure (right or left) to influence public debate, I do, indeed, doubt the ability of celebrities with intense points of view to incite the public into violence. This, of course, is the Liberal solution for the dilemma in which they find themselves when faced with the free speech of certain people on the right...argue that the speech is dangerous and therefore they have a free pass to assail it with words and manner which, if used by conservatives, they would call attempted censorship.

Surely you understand that when Coulter makes outrageous comments like the world would be a better place if an airplane flew into the NY Times building, that she is attempting to be humorous. Whether she succeeds or her attempt is in extreme bad taste is a matter of opinion, but it would be equally outrageous to suggest her intent was to incite violence against liberals or liberal institutions. It would also be disingenuous to warn that whether intended or not, violence is a likely result of her comments. Perhaps, though, you are aware of documented cases where the words of Coulter, Limbaugh or Hannity have incited people to violence.

Cooper is like your Grandfather who told you he walked to and from school each day - both ways uphill! I guess in that sense he is a true conservative. He liked it the way it was when Northeastern Republicans ruled his party. Socially liberal and pro-business. How he managed to obtain a position in the Reagan administration is interesting, but then he was a deputy press secretary, and what do they do? The assistant of a mouthpiece? Hardly anything even approaching a policy making position.

Walk up hill both ways? That is how you describe Cooper or his essay? My god man you have been sipping from Tommy Friedman's fermented bottle of loony non-sequiter metaphors once again. Apparently, you don't like what Cooper said, and as is your wont, you attacked the man himself and his past as a nobody, oddly a nobody who carried water in an administration you have been on record admiring. In one fell swoop you dismissed his perspective as useless because all he did was hold a job in an Republican administration. Boy, I wonder what the response would be from the likes of you for me using such a stupid and cavalier ploy to dismiss positions I abhor?

Obviously you missed the simile.

Cooper chose to introduce his prior connection with Reagan, I suspect, to establish his bonafides as a conservative Republican. That being the case a consideration of just what that connection might be is fair game.

In any case you are hardly someone to lecture anyone about ad hominem attacks.


Never-the-less he, apparently, is a Liberal's Republican. Good for him. Of course his Liberal admirers only admire him because of his disdain for Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh.

Actually, since you brought up your own pop psychology, permit me to apply somewhat more useful a description for this discourse; one thing about Copper, he is an adult and does not display the adolescent traits that are found so often in the rhetoric from the Right Wing.

Liberals are handicapped by their capacity to appreciate the other side's point of view (which waters down their conviction), while red meat conservatives are hampered by no such considerations. There is an extensive body of psychological research that suggests the two outlooks express two different stages of cognitive development.

The earlier stage, called in some circles "concrete operational", typically emerges during the latent period (ages roughly 7-14), and is characterized by identification with one's social role, and an unquestioning regard for the rules laid down by one's social affiliation. It lends itself to an ethnocentric, mythological worldview - my country (tribe, religion, team) right or wrong. God is on our side.

Then around adolescence there (hopefully) develops the capacity for critical thought. Guided by reason a person can see that his or her particular social group has no monopoly on truth or goodness. One begins to view the handed down rules with a critical eye.

This stage is called "formal operational" and it is here that one begins to think for oneself, draw one's own conclusions about the nature of reality. Of course things are not so cut and dried at this stage. Doubt begins to set in (hence the liberal's debilitating dilemma).

But because a person is now able to take the abstract leap outside one's own skin and see things from the other person's perspective, it lends itself to a broader, more global outlook -- we're all in this together.

Hence a Reagan era Republican would naturally subscribe to the received cold war mythology -- America in the white hat; Russia= evil empire -- while a liberal of that period might be "soft on communism" because he could see that for all its flaws the Marxist outlook was not without its virtues. The same cold war mentality drives Bush's "War on Terror" which any rational person can see fronts a very dubious agenda.

Bush's declaration "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" is classic ethnocentric thinking. It makes no allowance for subtlety. We're the good guys; they're the bad guys, and that's all there is to it. And anyone wise to the fact that even bad guys can mount a valid critique is guilty of heresy, treason, comforting the enemy, etc.

If you place yourself on that path you have placed yourself outside the fold and beyond the pale, you are one of "them", one of the devil's party, among the banished and the damned.

It might also be reflective of the two mindsets that some of us are content to sit in front of the TV and receive our marching orders as Consumers (that being our designated social role), while others of us know enough to feel insulted by that demeaning arrangement.

Be that as it may, the point is that it's a question of mental development. It does no good to hurl vituperations at those on the other side of the divide. They lack the necessary equipment to understand your position.

I refer to the different phases as the closed fist and the open hand. The former is strong and powerful, capable of force and smashing things up, whereas the open hand works with fingers in harmony to produce and create.

Or to masturbate.

Seems a very rigid and judgmental analysis for so subtle and empathetic a mind.

Can that extensive body of psychological research explain why you felt it necessary to write your post in a large font? I'm sure there are any number of pop-psychology explanations but I'd like the opinion of experts.

Moderates may be the potential saviors of humanity, but they are boring. They do not inspire and they do not entertain. They do not stand for principle but for compromise, and this may or may not be how they can save us, but it will never be the way to lead us.

Well, as indicated above, compromise is an indication of an adult mind dealing with the world as it is instead of how one wishes it were. I side with the adults. You can go join the little children if that is your desire.

A couple of Cooper canards:

How many times have we heard that the American people are ready for a responsible moderate government that gets the job done? Is Cooper the first Oracle to render such a prophesy? Hardly. Clearly the American people have not, are not and probably never will be ready to come together in local and national elections and put in place moderate, practical governments across the land. Moderates are boring and have a tough time getting votes.

Well, again, if we have moderation coming from the Bushevik administration where is it? And one of the ways that the GOP has used to gain votes has been to be divisive and accentuate the minor differences between most political positions and raise them to philosophical, moral, and ethical stances found only by fanatics on the far side of a Holy War. It has helped them win elections, but simultaneously cheapened and coarsened public life.

But that is something you are for, right?

"If only the good could be clever
and only the clever be good
the world would be better than ever
we thought that it possibly could.
But alas, things seldom or never
turn out as they properly should
for the good are so hard on the clever
and the clever so rude to the good."
Or as Rodney King put it: Can't we all just get along?

At any rate, there appears to be considerable evidence that susceptibility to the Conservative Republican point of view of the Coulters, et. al. has less to do with perverse and willful stupidity than with delayed cognitive development, a wide learning curve. You don't expect your four-year-old to give up pretending he's Superman; I don't expect Busheviks to either.



Coulter is the only Republican on the face of the earth who might criticize 9/11 widows.

When did 9/11 widows achieve sainthood? How is it their their tragedy has imparted perfection of position when none other have? The recent Tsunami left the world with far more widows than 9/11. Is there some reason why their tragedy is not deserving of the same sanctification of the tragedy of 9/11?

I have deeply felt sympathy for everyone who lost a loved one as a result of 9/11, but it goes no further. Whether conservative or liberal in their politics, the fact that they senselessly lost a loved one does not in any way render their opinions more important or more relevant than those of anyone else. I'm not sure how anyone of intelligence might think otherwise.

Cooper's notion that Coulter is "against" grieving widows...is idiotic.

Coulter uses a broadsword when a scalpel will do, but this doesn't mean that there is no basis to any of her positions.

As usual finn attacks the poster rather than address the thoughts in the post.

Unlike kuvaz for instance?

I still dont care what finn thinks.

And yet you felt compelled to submit this post.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

detano inipo wrote:

Interesting viewpoint. I wish all Republicans would take the time to read this.
................................
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4032514.html

Anyone who perceives that "Republicans are against almost everything from abortion to homosexuals. And nasty about it to boot, " is an ass. Mr. Cooper may find such regard hard to swallow, but I couldn't care less.

So tell us what Conservative Republicans stand for as opposed to what they stand against. Delineate how those stances are not divisive in the land as a whole. Surely Conservative Republicans love their country, that is not divisive. Those on the Left also love our country, why some of us actually served in the US Armed Forces, as you and some your political brethren actually did, like um, well, never mind. Surely Conservative Republicans love the god they worship, that too is not a divisive topic in America, the land of churches on nearly every corner and where polls proclaim 90% believe in God. But, what do Conservative Republicans stand for otherwise that does not set them against other human beings who are just trying to make it in this world without too much of a hassle?

I don't think I'll jump through your rhetorical hoops kuvy. Again, anyone who believes that "Republicans are against almost everything from abortion to homosexuals. And nasty about it to boot, " is an ass.

Asking for a Conservatrive Republican to explain what they are for should be easy enough. If you want to engage with your adversaries in a civil debate, your proclamation needs to be defended with a more mature insistence than "Because I said so."

Ms. Coulter makes a fine living being controversial and without diatribes like Cooper's would be less affluent than she is today. Remember when you were a kid and your older brother or sister teased you unmercifully? Usually one or both of your parents told you that by reacting with rage or outrage to the siblings teasing, you were only encouraging it? Liberal reaction to Coulter encourages it. She wouldn't be half as popular with her readers and fans if they did not know that she was getting under the skin of Liberals.

When someone repeatedly describes as a monolithic entity without diversity of thought and opinion an entire swath of the political spectrum and calls such people traitors, treasonous, and, dangerous to America, people take notice.

Truth enough, and I'm sure that when your brother called you "Stinky," or "Pinhead," you took notice as well. Of course people notice Coulter, which works well for her because that seems to be one of her foremost goals. The point I have raised is how people react to her name calling, and how that reaction can fuel her vitriol (Are you sure you never got this talk from one of your parents?).

Perhaps you know of some pejorative writings towards me by my three younger brothers and two younger sisters of which I am unaware, but none have been set to print nor are published nation-wide and have accused me of being a traitor worthy of incarceration or death, as has Coulter.

That you dismiss her hateful rhetoric as amusing is fairly detestable and shameful behavior on your part and illustrates a standard ploy used by the Far Right when confronted with the awful things their side says and does, viz., feign a stunned ignorance and basic lack of understanding of language and the potential effect such hateful speech can promote.


Is Cooper's disdain for Coulter any more or less justified because he is a Republican? Cooper no more speaks for Republicans, despite his non-scientific studies, than does Coulter.

I happen to agree that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter, Hannity or Limbaugh, but that doesn't mean they do not enjoy all three.

Then one should not be opposed nor sneeringly attack those of us who enjoy the theatrical truths revealed by a Michael Moore.


Really? Why not?

Are you suggesting that because I believe that the majority of Republicans are more moderate than Coulter et al, and might enjoy the riffs of her and her peers, that intellectual integrity should prevent me from being opposed to or criticizing (sneeringly or otherwise) folks who enjoy Michael Moore's work?

You'll have to draw a straighter path for me, because I can't follow your logic.

Yes, if you had a modicum of civil decency and intellectual integrity you would, but you don't so you won't. I asked because I expected such a response and you let others see what kind of person you are. Nicely done.

Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh are, essentially, entertainers. With the possible exception of Michael Moore, there are no Liberal entertainers who generate such passionate disregard among the Right. Why do Liberals find right-wing entertainers not only extremely offensive but dangerous? Is it because they appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, or is because they were more easily teased by their older siblings when they were kids?

Your pop psychology is wanting, really. What about those Liberals who are the eldest?


It's a sarcastic analogy kuvy, not an attempt to explain the complexity of the Liberal mind. Don't hurt yourself trying to come up with a rebuttal of it.

No, actually it was a stupid analogy, akin to proclaiming in all seriousness that "ice cream doesn't have bones." Your initial remark was the intellectual equivalent of $hitting your britches in public and cackling about it

You should edit your remarks before posting them. After all, if Liberals actually do appreciate the power of communication more than conservatives, one would think they would act upon such an appreciation and do likewise. Unfortunately, the mainstream Left does not throw the rhetorical bombs found in the Right Wing media, at least I have seen nothing from the Left comparable to Coutler's demeaning New York residents as cowards who would cut and run from terrorists, nor their media musings on how much better the world would be if someone flew a plane into the New York Time building. Perhaps somewhere a blogster from the Left has mentioned his wish that al Queada would wipe out the Wall Street Journal building, but I have yet to hear of it.



Cooper seems to get the point that Coulter & Co. are, as he puts it, "show business," but he can't resist raising them to a higher level by denouncing, and, more importantly to him, denying their influence.

The ability to influence public debate and intercourse by right wing talk radio/tv commentators is not in doubt by you is it? The three-headed monster you mention are those who act as launching pads for trial balloons released into public debate by the Right Wing to shift the boundary conditions of public policies and discourse. So yes, when they speak of Liberals as those who hate America, such nonsense mainstreams thoughts like that with its accompanying potential for violence against Liberals as traitors.

I don't doubt the ability of any public figure (right or left) to influence public debate, I do, indeed, doubt the ability of celebrities with intense points of view to incite the public into violence. This, of course, is the Liberal solution for the dilemma in which they find themselves when faced with the free speech of certain people on the right...argue that the speech is dangerous and therefore they have a free pass to assail it with words and manner which, if used by conservatives, they would call attempted censorship.


Again, you are employing the typical Right Wing debating tactic, viz., feigning not to understand the English language by your remark. Once again you did not address the issue and skirted it, viz., that of the process of propaganda and promotion of violent and uncivil behavior to fellow citizens is serious. But you think that is merely theater, a big joke, eh? Death threats not withstanding towards Michael Schaivo, the Dixie Chicks, Cindy Sheehan, and a host of others who have opposed the Bushevik administration's behavior are in no harm at all because the rabid musing of Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh are merely jest and no one in their right mind would be motivated to act upon their words. Right, but it is not those in their the right minds one worries about. It is the sick fukks of the world who think that when they hear public discourse about killing another person is normal that they get the idea to do it.

Btw: Your final remark would be funny if it were not a proven fact that it has been your own political party and allies that have called for and sought to shut down free speech and peaceful assembly throughout the country in their call for security. The courts abound in civil lawsuits filed against the Republican led Federal government by average citizens arrested for exercising the basic freedoms you allegedly cherish. You might be believable had you stood up for free speech when people were being arrested in public places for protesting the actions of the government. Your call of free speech remains so one sided, that calling your remark hypocritical does insult to the word

Surely you understand that when Coulter makes outrageous comments like the world would be a better place if an airplane flew into the NY Times building, that she is attempting to be humorous. Whether she succeeds or her attempt is in extreme bad taste is a matter of opinion, but it would be equally outrageous to suggest her intent was to incite violence against liberals or liberal institutions. It would also be disingenuous to warn that whether intended or not, violence is a likely result of her comments. Perhaps, though, you are aware of documented cases where the words of Coulter, Limbaugh or Hannity have incited people to violence.

So just as surely you understand that when I say in a public forum that someone should go to your house and kill you because killing one ignorant conservative a$$hole would set a good example on how to deal with people who undermine the American ideas of freedom and liberty, you know a priori I am only engaging in humorous bantering.

Are you sure?

(Disclaimer, In no way should anyone believe that my remarks reflect a willingnes towards such actions, nor promote actions of others to do so. However, I might donate to the legal defense fund of one who takes such actions.)

Again, are you sure?

And Coulter et. al have called for their political opponents traitors in a time of war for merely disagreeing with the government.

Finn, you don't actually believe it has no affect on civil discourse when you call your political opponents enemies of the state and there are already detention camps set up and inhabited, do you? No one can be that dull witted.

Not even mealy mouth apologists for neo -Fascism.

Cooper is like your Grandfather who told you he walked to and from school each day - both ways uphill! I guess in that sense he is a true conservative. He liked it the way it was when Northeastern Republicans ruled his party. Socially liberal and pro-business. How he managed to obtain a position in the Reagan administration is interesting, but then he was a deputy press secretary, and what do they do? The assistant of a mouthpiece? Hardly anything even approaching a policy making position.

Walk up hill both ways? That is how you describe Cooper or his essay? My god man you have been sipping from Tommy Friedman's fermented bottle of loony non-sequiter metaphors once again. Apparently, you don't like what Cooper said, and as is your wont, you attacked the man himself and his past as a nobody, oddly a nobody who carried water in an administration you have been on record admiring. In one fell swoop you dismissed his perspective as useless because all he did was hold a job in an Republican administration. Boy, I wonder what the response would be from the likes of you for me using such a stupid and cavalier ploy to dismiss positions I abhor?

Obviously you missed the simile.

Cooper chose to introduce his prior connection with Reagan, I suspect, to establish his bonafides as a conservative Republican. That being the case a consideration of just what that connection might be is fair game.

In any case you are hardly someone to lecture anyone about ad hominem attacks.

So I hinted that you might have molested children in your youth, and I am entitled to my beliefs. Prove me wrong.


Never-the-less he, apparently, is a Liberal's Republican. Good for him. Of course his Liberal admirers only admire him because of his disdain for Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh.

Actually, since you brought up your own pop psychology, permit me to apply somewhat more useful a description for this discourse; one thing about Copper, he is an adult and does not display the adolescent traits that are found so often in the rhetoric from the Right Wing.

Liberals are handicapped by their capacity to appreciate the other side's point of view (which waters down their conviction), while red meat conservatives are hampered by no such considerations. There is an extensive body of psychological research that suggests the two outlooks express two different stages of cognitive development.

The earlier stage, called in some circles "concrete operational", typically emerges during the latent period (ages roughly 7-14), and is characterized by identification with one's social role, and an unquestioning regard for the rules laid down by one's social affiliation. It lends itself to an ethnocentric, mythological worldview - my country (tribe, religion, team) right or wrong. God is on our side.

Then around adolescence there (hopefully) develops the capacity for critical thought. Guided by reason a person can see that his or her particular social group has no monopoly on truth or goodness. One begins to view the handed down rules with a critical eye.

This stage is called "formal operational" and it is here that one begins to think for oneself, draw one's own conclusions about the nature of reality. Of course things are not so cut and dried at this stage. Doubt begins to set in (hence the liberal's debilitating dilemma).

But because a person is now able to take the abstract leap outside one's own skin and see things from the other person's perspective, it lends itself to a broader, more global outlook -- we're all in this together.

Hence a Reagan era Republican would naturally subscribe to the received cold war mythology -- America in the white hat; Russia= evil empire -- while a liberal of that period might be "soft on communism" because he could see that for all its flaws the Marxist outlook was not without its virtues. The same cold war mentality drives Bush's "War on Terror" which any rational person can see fronts a very dubious agenda.

Bush's declaration "Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists" is classic ethnocentric thinking. It makes no allowance for subtlety. We're the good guys; they're the bad guys, and that's all there is to it. And anyone wise to the fact that even bad guys can mount a valid critique is guilty of heresy, treason, comforting the enemy, etc.

If you place yourself on that path you have placed yourself outside the fold and beyond the pale, you are one of "them", one of the devil's party, among the banished and the damned.

It might also be reflective of the two mindsets that some of us are content to sit in front of the TV and receive our marching orders as Consumers (that being our designated social role), while others of us know enough to feel insulted by that demeaning arrangement.

Be that as it may, the point is that it's a question of mental development. It does no good to hurl vituperations at those on the other side of the divide. They lack the necessary equipment to understand your position.

I refer to the different phases as the closed fist and the open hand. The former is strong and powerful, capable of force and smashing things up, whereas the open hand works with fingers in harmony to produce and create.

Or to masturbate.

Seems a very rigid and judgmental analysis for so subtle and empathetic a mind.

Can that extensive body of psychological research explain why you felt it necessary to write your post in a large font? I'm sure there are any number of pop-psychology explanations but I'd like the opinion of experts.

Don't knock it, at least its sex with someone I love.

I wrote in large font (# 18) blue simply because if you write in the regular #12 blue font within an enclosed A2K quoted passage, you can hardly read it.

Red, as you like to use is easier to read at such a small type because the cones in the human eye have greater sensitivity to red than blue.

Of course, bad eyesight might be due to chronic masturbation, but I will have to defer to a master at it.

So, Finn, is it true?

Moderates may be the potential saviors of humanity, but they are boring. They do not inspire and they do not entertain. They do not stand for principle but for compromise, and this may or may not be how they can save us, but it will never be the way to lead us.

Well, as indicated above, compromise is an indication of an adult mind dealing with the world as it is instead of how one wishes it were. I side with the adults. You can go join the little children if that is your desire.

A couple of Cooper canards:

How many times have we heard that the American people are ready for a responsible moderate government that gets the job done? Is Cooper the first Oracle to render such a prophesy? Hardly. Clearly the American people have not, are not and probably never will be ready to come together in local and national elections and put in place moderate, practical governments across the land. Moderates are boring and have a tough time getting votes.

Well, again, if we have moderation coming from the Bushevik administration where is it? And one of the ways that the GOP has used to gain votes has been to be divisive and accentuate the minor differences between most political positions and raise them to philosophical, moral, and ethical stances found only by fanatics on the far side of a Holy War. It has helped them win elections, but simultaneously cheapened and coarsened public life.

But that is something you are for, right?

"If only the good could be clever
and only the clever be good
the world would be better than ever
we thought that it possibly could.
But alas, things seldom or never
turn out as they properly should
for the good are so hard on the clever
and the clever so rude to the good."
Or as Rodney King put it: Can't we all just get along?

At any rate, there appears to be considerable evidence that susceptibility to the Conservative Republican point of view of the Coulters, et. al. has less to do with perverse and willful stupidity than with delayed cognitive development, a wide learning curve. You don't expect your four-year-old to give up pretending he's Superman; I don't expect Busheviks to either.



Coulter is the only Republican on the face of the earth who might criticize 9/11 widows.

When did 9/11 widows achieve sainthood? How is it their their tragedy has imparted perfection of position when none other have? The recent Tsunami left the world with far more widows than 9/11. Is there some reason why their tragedy is not deserving of the same sanctification of the tragedy of 9/11?

I have deeply felt sympathy for everyone who lost a loved one as a result of 9/11, but it goes no further. Whether conservative or liberal in their politics, the fact that they senselessly lost a loved one does not in any way render their opinions more important or more relevant than those of anyone else. I'm not sure how anyone of intelligence might think otherwise.

Cooper's notion that Coulter is "against" grieving widows...is idiotic.

Coulter uses a broadsword when a scalpel will do, but this doesn't mean that there is no basis to any of her positions.