Reading Comprehension Problems
I despair for some of our lefty friends, many of whom have severe reading impairments.
Yesterday I catalogued just a few examples of leftist hate speech by prominent figures, and I said: “The point of this list is not to argue that leftists are more hateful than conservatives.” And got a flood of leftists saying, you haven’t proved leftists are more hateful than conservatives!
I said:
It should be obvious that this post is not a “they do it too” defense of Coulter or her ilk. To the contrary, my repeated condemnation of her is a matter of record.
And I got a flood of leftists saying: why are you defending Ann Coulter?
I said:
If leftists defend any of the above quotes on the grounds that they’re “jokes,” they cannot consistently criticize the likes of Ann Coulter for making the same kinds of “jokes.” But they’ll try. Just watch.
And they did, blind to the counterargument I had already made.
And finally, I got the most reading-impaired lefty of them all, Rick Ellensburg himself, saying that, according to my post, he had argued “that no liberal of any kind has ever said anything offensive or wrong in the entire history of the world.”
Well, no, sir, you didn’t say that. I’ll grant you that. What did say was precisely what I quoted and debunked:
[I]t is undeniably true that there are people of every ideological stripe who express profane and reprehensible sentiments. The difference is that right-wing authors, talk radio hosts and bloggers — read and listened to by millions of people — traffic in such sentiments regularly . . . . But to find such sentiments outside of right-wing circles, one must go where right-wing bloggers went today — digging into anonymous blog comments (or e-mails allegedly received). That difference is so obvious — and so meaningful — that it all ought to go without saying.
The bolded part — which was bolded in my original post, for the benefit of reading-impaired sock-puppeting lawyer/bloggers — was debunked quite neatly by my post.
And you, Glenn Greenwald, are too proud to admit that.
But it’s obvious to any sentient being not blinded by ideology.
If any liberal tried to make such a list of alleged conservative hate speech, I could easily cherry-pick and nitpick it until the cows come home, using the same lame arguments leftists used yesterday. This quote is old. This person is not a politician. Your source on this is a leftist web site and not the original recording. Blah blah blah. You think the same stupid arguments all you people made can’t be flipped around? Go ahead, try it.
Even this “Lean Left” post, cited by Greenwald as excellent evidence of righty hate speech, merely cites 13 things Ann Coulter said that boil down to: lefties don’t care about the good of the country. For example: “[Environmentalists] never intended for us to survive,” and “Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.” Oh, that’s what you mean by hate speech, Glenn?? Because if it is, I can give you examples of the left saying things like that all day long. I was trying to play fair and stick to actual hate speech, like threats of death and violence, and naked racism. But if calling Republicans Nazi counts, you have opened the floodgates, my friends.
Commmenters, start giving us examples of Republicans being called evil. It’s all Glenn Greenwald-approved “hate speech” now.
By the way, Greenwald claims that one of my examples was a quote from Conan O’Brien. It wasn’t. It was a reference to Alec Baldwin’s appearance on Conan O’Brien. But Greenwald says I quoted “such towering political leaders on the left as Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, Alec Baldwin, Alexander Cockburn, Dan Savage, and Louis Farrakhan.” (Well, and DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, top Democrat strategist James Carville, and former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson.)
But not Conan, Glenn. Not Conan.
Why is this mistake interesting? Because the Conan O’Brien mistake was made by the “Lean Left” blogger cited above, whom Greenwald had relied on to provide a defense. You see, Greenwald did what he has always done in the past when I have whacked him across the head. He relies on his army of sycophants to come up with any argument against my broadside, no matter how misleading — and he relies on those arguments without checking their accuracy.
This is who he is. And this is what he does.
You’re just too doggone rational for the ultra-lefties, and that scares them. The idea of a rational conservative is extremely threatening to their world view. Since you don’t fit the picture, they invent one so their verities won’t be challenged. They’re not going to be fooled into looking into Galileo’s telescope.
Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4) — 3/6/2007 @ 8:37 amI don’t think they actually read your posts Patterico. Rather, from reading their comments it appears they simply come comment on what they’ve been told is contained therein.
Dwilkers (4f4ebf) — 3/6/2007 @ 8:55 amYou are quite right Patterico, the reading skills of the left are suspect. Their thinking capabilities seem also sadly impaired. Marvelous insights these blog comments!
MikeD (ecd3bf) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:08 amPatterico, you’re awesome! 🙂 So calm. Such killer sobriety and accuracy. Ace would have gone over-the-top with his insults and florid language, thus obscuring his own case.
ellersburgwhoresonellis (35206f) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:29 amIt sums up what I think we all kind of know about most lefties anyway. They don’t think, they don’t listen and when you shake the proof in their face they go blind.
This is fun as an exercise in just such proof-shaking, but I think we all know how much progress we’re making actually communicating with these people.
spongeworthy (45b30e) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:31 amI’m going to do my best to not respond to this with quotes of Dems/Lefties calling us evil and such.
First off, it too darned easy. Like nuking fish in a barrel.
Second, after the idiocy from the other post, I’m afraid my head would explode…
Scott (90eabe) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:33 amAt Dr. Sanity’s site, it’s amazing how many times a Lefty will show up as a case in point to conveniently demonstrate exactly what the main post was all about – many times even as the very first comment.
Sometimes after getting rightly hogtied by the site’s other commenters, the subject will then try to [falsely] claim that the other commenters haven’t made any argument and so must suddenly offer [another] one, when Dr. Sanity’s original post still stands unchallenged, apparently because it hasn’t even been read by the hapless prey.
It’s so bizarre, I’ve jokingly claimed that Dr. Sanity is the one also appearing as another case in point, under an assumed name. It’s almost too “pat” – as in Dr. Pat Santy.
J. Peden (8d674a) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:40 amMikeD: You are quite right Patterico, the reading skills of the left are suspect. Their thinking capabilities seem also sadly impaired. Marvelous insights these blog comments!
If you’re accusing Patterico of attacking the reading comprehension of everyone on the left, I would direct you to the very first thing Patterico wrote in this post:
“I despair for some of our lefty friends, many of whom have severe reading impairments.”
As opposed to, say, all of the people on the left. No, just the illiterates who won’t admit that Patterico is right in this argument.
Then I would suggest you work on your, erm, reading comprehension…
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 3/6/2007 @ 10:00 amThat Grennwald guy is making me nauseous with his goalpost shifting. It’s like watching a tennis match from center court.
Wilson (9454d6) — 3/6/2007 @ 10:01 amPatterico,
Since you claim that Lefties sometimes engage in Hate Speech, shouldn’t you at least have provided some examples?!
Oh–you mean there is an earlier post with 223 comments on that very topic?
Oh–you mean I’m supposed to read and understand before commenting?
Ah, so that’s how this interweb thing is supposed to work! Never mind, then.
AMac (c822c9) — 3/6/2007 @ 10:10 am(I can’t tell if MikeD was being sarcastic, or was just making a friendly comment. If his intentions were friendly, I didn’t mean to snark.)
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 3/6/2007 @ 10:18 amIt’s got nothing to do with what you actually said, Paterico. The important thing to a liberal is how they feel about what you said. Remember: It’s all about me.
Socratease (64f814) — 3/6/2007 @ 10:46 amHugh Hewitt posed an interesting question to Mark Halpern of ABC’s “The Note” on his Monday show — that Democratic leaders like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were hampered in their efforts to plan effective strategy and countermeasures against Republicans, because the media over the years has been so lax on challenging them on their idea it’s made them less mentally tough to deal with ideological combat. And Halpern basically agreed with the points.
I think in the blog world, the same hypothesis holds true – people like Greenwald or Ellensberg are actually hampered in the battle over ideologies due to the fact that outside of contact with conservative ideas on the Internet, they’re really not challenged by others in the older media forums on their ideas. As a result, when they, or others, get into these arguments over ideology, their justifications are soft and/or non-existant, and about 75 percent of the time, denegrate into name-calling and/or attempts to change the subject.
(I’d also say the reverse holds true for folks on the right — Rush Limbaugh’s show, IMHO, was far more nimble mentally a decade ago, when he was broadcasting from New York City and had to deal with its liberal environment and beliefs directly on a day-to-day basis. Living in Florida, he avoids both the gawdawful New York city and state taxes, but also isolates himself more from the give and take that forces a conservative commentator to be quicker verbally and mentally.)
John (34537e) — 3/6/2007 @ 11:06 amDaryl, Mike was being sarcastic. (His last sentence is the tip-off.)
ellersburgwhoresonellis (35206f) — 3/6/2007 @ 11:15 amI agree with John. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to people with like-minded ideas but anyone – left or right – who lets his ideas be challenged is better off in the long run. The trick is to not let it get personal. My view is that liberals see many decisions from a subjective rather than an objective perspective (e.g., “How does this affect people?” as opposed to “What should the rule/goal be?”) so it’s hard for liberals not to take things personally.
DRJ (0c4ef8) — 3/6/2007 @ 11:24 am#15 – To put it more cynically: Whether consciously or unconsciously, liberals are constantly calculating on how something affects their or their group’s personal fortunes.
Do you have an inconvenient truth to raise about, say, Bill Clinton cheating with interns in the Oval Office? It must be because you’re out to GET Bill Clinton… and that in turn, because you’re a racist, sexist HATER of Clinton’s (perceived) supporters and want them to go down.
It couldn’t possibly be that, gee, you actually care about an issue of PRINCIPLE. (Such as: Presidents not molesting the interns… Presidents not lying… Presidents attending to the Nation’s business… Presidents respecting the great Office they are in… etc.)
ellersburgwhoresonellis (35206f) — 3/6/2007 @ 11:57 amNot just too proud, patterico. Too partisan and too full of shit also apply.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 12:54 pmHere are some easy questions for you guys:
* Who is it that hates homosexuals? Liberals or conservatives?
* Who is it that hates Arabs/Muslims? Liberals or conservatives?
* Who is it that hates illegal aliens? Liberals or conservatives?
Yeah – I hate Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly. Both sides hate the other sides’ idiot mouthpieces.
When it comes down to it, however, which ideology is the ideology of hate? I think it’s pretty clear.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:10 pmLA,
Since you’re the one who admits to hating people, I guess that makes you the hater here.
DRJ (0c4ef8) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:14 pmConsidering that any answer we give to LA, at least at LA’s own site, is likely to be rewritten, I’d say that, at best, there’s actually no way to know the answer, now is there?
But I’d suggest that there’s one thing LA, at least, hates: that’s the unvarnished truth, as witness both the droppings LA (in whichever guises) leaves here, as well as the free and happy rewriting of other people’s comments at LA’s own site.
Lurking Observer (ea88e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:22 pmLiberal Avenger hates Carlitos. Though we don’t know why.
AMac (c822c9) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:36 pm…which ideology is the ideology of hate? I think it’s pretty clear.
It is pretty clear, just ask the victims of these liberal heroes: Stalin, Castro, Arafat, Ho Che Minh and Mao.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:39 pmWell – there is an American movement predicated upon the hatred of homosexuals. There are Americans out there who are calling for us to “nuke Mecca” and “kill the ragheads.” There are strong voices calling for mass deportation of illegal Mexicans in this country…
Which ideology is generally associated with each of these movements? I can’t recall the last time I participated in a patchouli-fest/love-in where killing ragheads was celebrated.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 3/6/2007 @ 1:47 pm1) Deporting illegal aliens in no way equates to hating Mexicans, and only the logically impaired could think so.
2) I call on all the Democratic presidential candidates, and Leftwing bloggers to repudiate and distance themselves from the NAACP who (on the same day that Coulter made her comment about rehab and calling someone a faggot) have just awarded Isaiah Washington an Image award for best Actor. (as an aside, Washington has still not made good on his pledge to seek rehabilitation) Surely the fact that a major civil rights organization has just rewarded a homophobic bigot cannot go unnoticed. Right?
gahrie (d8da01) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:07 pmDRJ,
We have a winner, and in just 4 short minutes!
LA, stop projecting. Just because you hate everything that ruffles your sensibilities doesn’t mean that anyone else does. Sit down and have a manshake, OK?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:07 pmWe don’t want to “kill ragheads”. We do, however, have this odd desire to kill the people trying to kill us. I know, it’s strange, but it’s how we are… We tend to take threats of streets running with our blood poorly.
I know I do.
I don’t hate gays, nore minorities, nor illegal aliens.
I wants the illegals gone, though. Because they are here illegally. Funny that. If they want to come here, they can do so legally. If not, then too bad.
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:12 pmPatterico:
You were right about the Conan O’Brien quote; I got the attribution wrong.
The rest of this is just nonsense.
Are you telling us now that the entire point of your original post was to prove that the claim that inflammatory language from left-leaning speakers mostly comes from obscure, low-profile sources like blog commenters wasn’t literally true for every single example? That the fact that some left-leaning person used a slur 23 years ago, but not in comments on a blog, proves something about political discourse today?
Well, congratulations on your reading comprehension, but the second lesson on that subject usually goes like this: “read for meaning“. You have successfully proven that not all inflammatory remarks from the left come from blog comments (thought that, technically, wasn’t what Greenwald said, either – you might want to re-visit reading comprehension lesson #1).
Greenwald’s point was that inflammatory rhetoric, personal abuse, and slurs are standard fare for right-wingers, persistently and at the highest and most prominent levels, and that you have to go to lengths to find anything similar from the left: for instance, by digging through unknown commenters’ remarks on blogs, or . . . I don’t . . . quoting British TV review columnists, a sex-advice columnist from the free papers, or single words spoken 23 years ago. In contrast (as I noted in my post), you can find the most outrageous slurs and smears (“Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.”, “Liberals [including Hitler and Stalin] have always had a thing about eliminating humans.”) from just one column by Ann Coulter, just one week before she was hired by CPAC to deliver similar slurs to a cheering audience.
I think you’ve proved Greenwald’s point very well.
[Of course you do. Because you’re blinded by ideology.
You seem to utterly fail to notice that I already addressed your argument, back up in the post. Poor reading comprehension? — P]
Kevin T. Keith (8dcc85) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:12 pmPablo…
You’re never going to get enough use outta “manshake”, are you…
Not complaining… I thought your last line was funny as hell…
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:17 pmKevin:
I learned a long time ago that since we can’t read the mind of the person talking, we have only their words to go by. I assume that people say exactly what they mean unless context shows satire, mocking, sarcasm or attempts at humor.
As for “one word 23 years ago” there a LAPD Detective turned writer that might ask you to rethink your stance, as it sure bit HIM in the ass at a trial.
And how has P proven a point that only the right uses hate speech by showing you that the left uses it just as frequently. That the news doesn’t play it 100 times a day when it happens shouldn’t surprise you. Unless you think ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN are somehow right-leaning…
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:21 pmThat’s it LA, try to pretend moonbat lefties like you aren’t hate mongers. Just because you pretend the hateful platform Dem moonbats stand for, doesn’t exist doesn’t mean we do.
What that previous thread proves is the mental illness the moonbats have. They have a pathological need to FEEL good about themselves and morally and intellectually superior to others. So when you prove they aren’t, they have a psychotic break from their carefully crafted fantasy world. In order to avoid such a break, they become “blind” as someone previously pointed out. It’s a defense mechanism.
Hard Right (7900e3) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:22 pm#23
Well – there is an American movement predicated upon the hatred of white men. There are Americans out there who are calling for us to “kill the fetuses.”
Which ideology is generally associated with each of these movements? I can’t recall the last time I participated in a patchouli-fest/love-in where killing fetuses was celebrated.
Perfect Sense (b6ec8c) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:22 pmLA,
corwin (dfaf29) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:24 pmKeep constructing your Potemkin villages if it makes you happy.But it speaks volumes for your lack of intellectual rigor.
Who hates homosexuals? I tend to follow Freud’s (A Viennese physician,founder of modern psychiatry) statement that “while homosexual;ity is assuredly not an advantage,neither is it something to be ashamed of.”
Who hates Arabs/Muslims?Really,LA-one should be able to criticize sub groups of religions engaged in violent murderous behavior without worrying about your PC score or fuzzy quotient.There are sub groups,wwhose common denominator is Arabic/Muslim links who’ve murdered,oppressed,tried to intimidate criticism,
lied etc.yes there is a common denominator.What would you have us apply as a common denominator?That they are almost all less than 198 cm tall?And by the way,are they very tolerant ?
What would you re’ illegal immigrants?Should we:a)deport them with love?
b)Ignore the problem and hope it goes away?(Kind of like a silent but deadly fart by the department chair)
c)GIve them temorary visas?”Because ,after all even in Egypy even the Pharoahs-
Had to import,
Hebrew braceros.And I defy anyone to give the source of that limerick.
You see,LA-you’re a pissant.You like to think of yourself as a gadfly.It’s the same genus,but not species.You attribute views to people ,then attack the same.But your attribution-i.e.you can pontificate”Let there be Light”, at 3 AM and nothing will happen.Similarly,your conjuring views/statements to oppose is also a nullity.
Perhaps more than anything else your pompousness and actual impotence is depicted by your grandiose name.Do yourself a favor-and I mean this.Change utterly.
Scott, it’s an instant classic! A true internet own goal. And given that LA is such a repugnant POS, how can you not toss it out there?
Then there’s that pesky little fact that it’s mainly the right that is trying to reconstruct and pacify Iraq so that those “ragheads” will have a place people might actually want to live in, and have control of their own destiny, and govern themselves and perhaps spread some (small l) liberalism throughout the region. Why? Because we want to kill them all, says LA. Who would prefer that other “ragheads” kill as many of them as humanly possible.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:28 pmdetails details details…
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:32 pmKevin, did you read the other thread? I am assuming you can read. A big assumption, I know.
So you are saying Howard Dean, Charles Rangel, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Murtha, Dixk Durbin, Kucinich, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Carter, Al Gore etc are “unknown commentors”?
Hard Right (7900e3) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:38 pmHow come so few bloggers are signing this petition against Coulter?
LoafingOaf (a90377) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:45 pmI am seriously wondering about “Lean Left” and “Kevin T. Keith” and would comfortably make an accusation if just one of them would “Good Day, Sir!” you.
To recap: I question the buggers.
Uncle Pinky (300784) — 3/6/2007 @ 2:51 pm“But not Conan, Glenn. Not Conan.”
Hey! You still have not proven that it was Conan.
Federal Dog (9afd6c) — 3/6/2007 @ 3:17 pmWhy are you wasting your time on stuff like this? Even if it is misconstrued, “they do it too” stuff, that is still a form of “they do it too”. Just step outside the box and don’t bother putting dumb threads like that up. Then you won’t have to laboriously explain such points (which are trite anyhow).
TCO (6caa0b) — 3/6/2007 @ 3:25 pmBecause it’s been such a fiasco from a policy standpoint, good intentions are the only thing left to support your preening self-righteousness.
Moops (8fcb37) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:26 pmP has to say “they do it too” because they say “they DON’T do it.” He’s not about to let them get away with accusing someone of something that they do as well. That is all.
otcconan (a4e875) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:34 pm[…] Go and read all of them. Then also his latest post that shows that those on the Left not only don’t know hate when they read/hear/see it — they don’t read for shit, either! (db) […]
“Okie” on the Lam » Liberals’ Take On Coulter’s Edwards Slur (e2cef7) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:39 pmor e-mails allegedly received
Isn’t it funny how Marcotte didn’t “allegedly” receive emails?
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:51 pmThat is just fact to thos on the left.
Patterico’s Rick Ellensburg link, in the first update, agrees with his commenter Mona that the “real issue” is:
I think conservatives might be more likely to agree with this statement if liberals admitted that this statement would also be true if we substitute “Michael Moore” for “Ann Coulter” and “Democratic Party” for “CPAC.”
DRJ (8b9d41) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:54 pmYeah – I hate Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly. Both sides hate the other sides’ idiot mouthpieces.
When it comes down to it, however, which ideology is the ideology of hate?
What is funny and sad is you’re not bright enough to see how dumb this makes you look.
Who is it that hates Republicans? Liberals
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 4:55 pmWho is it that hates Christians? Liberals
Who is it that hates the military? Liberals
Who is it that hates anyone that disagrees with them politically?
Liberals.
For the record, I am a white man. I certainly don’t hate myself.
I’m also a fetus-lover. I am certainly pro-choice, but I am personally anti-abortion. I followed through on becoming a father at an unusually young age. Abortion wasn’t an option for us. I don’t know anyone personally for whom it has been, in fact.
The Liberal Avenger (b8c7e2) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:12 pmWell – there is an American movement predicated upon the hatred of homosexuals.
No there isn’t.
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:31 pm#46 – Once again, a stellar Own Goal scored by the Liberal Avenger!
Pro-choice, but personally anti-abortion? Nothing like taking a stand on principle there, LA.
I take it also that you “support the troops but oppose the war”?
Is your ability to take a stand on matters directly dependent on which side at that time you think is more politically ‘ucky’?
Yeesh…
JD (044292) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:32 pm“Pro-choice, but personally anti-abortion?”
Nothing to sneer at. It’s true Liberalism as opposed to Progressivism. Letting people choose their own way to Hell. I, personally, disagree and would impose my love of children on others but I do not condemn people who only impose it on themselves.
nk (db0112) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:47 pmI think conservatives might be more likely to agree with this statement if liberals admitted that this statement would also be true if we substitute “Michael Moore” for “Ann Coulter” and “Democratic Party” for “CPAC.”
DRJ – Has Michael Moore wished that Timothy McVeigh would have blown up the Wall Street Journal? That someone would put rat poison in Justice Thomas’ food? Did he say that Scooter Libby had to be executed in order to physically intimidate conservatives, by making them realize that they can be killed, because otherwise they’d ruin the country? That conservatives always talk about pc-ness and their speech being repressed, so we should go ahead and repress it – he’s not a big fan of the First Amendment anyway? That he’d rather not talk to conservatives – he thinks a baseball bat is the most effective way these days?
Now, Moore’s really degenerated over the last six or so years. I think a lot of what he’s saying is simple-minded nonsense, and have lost a great deal of respect for him (look at his work from the ’90s, and tell me if I’m wearing blinders here, if you wish). But he hasn’t descended nearly this far yet. He’s never said anything like this. A small and insignificant detail: at the ’04 convention, in the midst of a speech, Moore blurted out that there were good Republicans (although, he insisted, they were going to vote for the Democrats). Ann? She’d already said, back in ’02, “There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats.” That’s minor. The comments above aren’t, but of course they’re all Coulter’s (with the labels changed), all from one single extraordinarily popular conservative, all from the last few years (not the last twenty). That’s what she’s been saying for years. That’s who CPAC invited as a speaker in ’06 (when she let loose with the ragheads comment), and who they invited back to call Edwards a faggot, to cheers and applause.
So, again “why it is that (a) they need to ask a “respectable” organization like CPAC to keep a hate-spewing bigot off its stage, and (b) whether they think a petition will do anything to diminish the popularity of Coulter’s views, as manifest in cheers, heavy booking on college campuses, as well as astronomical book sales?”“
Dan S. (ce5c13) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:47 pmHaters.
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:49 pmThat’s right, JD. If you disapprove of a behavior, you should seek to make it illegal. Otherwise you’re unprincipled. True genius.
Moops (8fcb37) — 3/6/2007 @ 5:54 pmThat’s right, JD. If you disapprove of a behavior, you should seek to make it illegal.
You mean like smoking bans?
Or are you suggesting that murder should be legal?
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:22 pmHow about anything? Anything I want to do should be legal then, right?
Patterico, so you honestly think you can write a post entitled No Hate Speech by Prominent Leftists?, and fill the post with quotes trying to smear the left’s leadership and not expect that kind of reaction from the left?
I think your reading comprehension charge of way off the mark. Of course people – myself included – on the left are going to try to provide counterexamples and argue with that.
Especially in light of the current Coulter controversy, the attempted smear far outweighs the nit-picking in this case.
Psyberian (de47c4) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:35 pmMake that “your reading comprehension charge is way off the mark.”
Psyberian (de47c4) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:37 pmand fill the post with quotes trying to smear the left’s leadership
Yes, to liberals facts are “smears”
Too funny.
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:42 pmPsyberian,
Counterexamples are argumentum tu quoque. They do not undermine the premise of the point Patterico was making. That point was to contradict Greenwalds assertion that the left doesn’t do it.
They do. QED.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:48 pmPablo, sure those are tu quoque arguments. But you have unsheathed a double-edged sword since if that’s the case, then Patterico’s whole post is a list of “you too” arguments, isn’t it?
However, I believe that the right is nastier than the left, but I’m biased.
Psyberian (de47c4) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:55 pmYeah, I rememeber Marcotte getting smeared with all those direct, verbatim quotes. Those monsters!
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:56 pmPsyberian,
The oft repeated point of the post was to contradict Greenwald’s assertion that the left doesn’t do it.
That being the case, Patterico hit the bullseye, didn’t he? The left does do it, don’t they?
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 6:58 pmI get your point Pablo, but most people don’t care about the little spat between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, they just see the attack – and rightly so.
Psyberian (de47c4) — 3/6/2007 @ 7:00 pmThe unintentional and pretty ironic self-parody in that comment had me laughing for five minutes.
Priceless.
“I hate this guy, this guy, and this guy. So, you know, I’m not the hater.”
Just. Priceless.
Bob Dole (c65bfa) — 3/6/2007 @ 7:02 pmYet here you are hip deep in it.
I left a couple of very direct questions in my 6:58 post. They require only simple yes or no answers, which would be appreciated.
Pablo (08e1e8) — 3/6/2007 @ 7:11 pmBob Dole? THE Bob Dole?
Anyway, I’m guessing that LA probably hates them for being hate-filled jerks. I despise them for the same reason. They live to spread their hate like a disease.
Why can’t we just disagree? I try not to assume the vilest motives to people just because I disagree with them politically – but those people do. Some on the left do too, I’ll admit. But we need to grow up. Why can’t we agree to hate the haters? We’d all be better off.
Psyberian (de47c4) — 3/6/2007 @ 7:16 pmScott:
how has P proven a point that only the right uses hate speech by showing you that the left uses it just as frequently.
That was the point of both my responses. P’s “proof” consisted of a string of quotes going back over 20 years, a good number of which were not from liberals, and others of which were from highly marginal figures (including one from England). And, as I noted, you can get a similar string of quotes from just one article by the person who kicked off this debate. If the best he can come up with as “hate speech” from “prominent leftist figures” is Louis Farrakhan saying “Murder and lying comes easy for white people” 13 years ago, and Ann Coulter likens liberals to Stalin and Hitler while spewing more than a dozen variations of “Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.” in a single column less than two weeks ago, immediately after which she was a featured speaker at the country’s largest annual conservative conference, it seems as if examples from the right are a lot easier to find than examples from the (not really) “left”, huh?
He hasn’t proven that they do it “just as frequently”. He’s proven that he can’t find examples without going to absurd lengths encompassing a ridiculous timespan and speakers who don’t even fit his own criteria for inclusion.
I didn’t put that list of quotes together – Patterico did. He had the entire Web to choose from. That’s what he came up with. And it’s laughably lame. But presumably it was the strongest evidence he could find for his point. Presumably he couldn’t find as many as 20 actual leftists to provide examples, and couldn’t find more than 8 or 9 examples from within the current century – because that’s what he came up with. In contrast, the evidence to the opposite conclusion requires no effort at all to find – I just looked up Ann Coulter’s most-recent column and got over a dozen examples of her claiming liberals literally want to kill 299 million Americans and such like. I’m sure if I’d read her two most recent columns I’d have had more examples of outrageous smears than P was apparently able to identify from the entire history of liberalism, or at least the last 23 years.
So, again, I think Greenwald’s point has been proved, ironically, by the content of P’s supposed “proof” to the contrary.
Hard Right:
So you are saying Howard Dean, Charles Rangel, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Murtha, Dixk Durbin, Kucinich, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Carter, Al Gore etc are “unknown commentors”?
What about them? Patterico doesn’t seem to think they fill his need for counterexamples. He provided no Coulterish quotes from them. Again, he had perfect freedom to provide any evidence he wanted to back up his claim that statements equally as offensive as Coulter’s come from “prominent leftists”. He provided quotes from figures that were mostly not prominent and often not leftists, and had to go back decades, and reach into England, to find even two dozen of them. None of the names above were included. I presume there’s a reason for that.
It’s hard to resolve this question non-quantitatively, however. There needs to be some kind of framework for comparing apples to apples. Since P can’t seem to find any decent evidence, you could try this: pick the top 3 or 5 liberals and conservatives, each, from the New York Times Best-Seller list for this week (I don’t know who they are, but it will be the usual suspects), and then search for quotes from just those figures from a defined, recent time period – the past year or two years, maybe. (I’d say start after the mid-term election, just because things get kind of out of hand during the campaign. See how they behave when they’re at their calmest.) That would provide a reasonably even-handed comparison.
I can tell you now it’s going to look ugly for conservatives. The top sellers probably include Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, and their ilk; you’d need a shovel to handle their spew. Whatever . . . who?, Al Franken, Al Gore, Michael Moore? have said recently is nothing to what comes out of the conservatives’ mouths, or in their columns, every single day. But go ahead – make the comparison if you like.
Another one could be statements made by the 3 or 4 top-polling Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates, in the last year or over their careers. Barack Obama vs. Rudy Giuliani? No contest.
It was Patterico who made the absurd claim that leading liberals routinely behave like Ann Coulter. It’s not my job to plan your research to back up your own claims, but if you want to do it systematically, that’s how you can do so. As for P’s first attempt, it was a complete failure. But keep trying if you like.
[Dude, if you can’t respond to my point — which I’ll remind you again I made in the post — just say so. — P]
Kevin T. Keith (670c14) — 3/6/2007 @ 8:39 pm[…] Original post by unknown […]
quotes » Comment on Reading Comprehension Problems by Kevin T. Keith (4b3a03) — 3/6/2007 @ 9:22 pmI think your reading comprehension charge of way off the mark. Of course people – myself included – on the left are going to try to provide counterexamples and argue with that.
Psyberian, you’re a perfect example of a lefty with comprehension problems.
Greenwald claimed there were no instances of prominent lefties making hateful remarks. Patterico showed instances of prominent lefties making hateful remarks, proving Greenwald’s claim to be false.
Here’s some reading for you, from the dictionary: A counterexample is “an example that refutes an assertion or claim.” For one of your examples to be a “counterexample,” it must refute (disprove) Patterico’s claim that hateful posts by lefties exist. Do you see why there’s no such thing as a “counterexample” in this argument?
Counterexamples are examples that are contrary to some argument. They are not examples that are the opposite of some other examples.
There can be counterexamples even if there were no examples in the original argument. The fact that Patterico provided examples to prove his point doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be able to use counterexamples to disprove his point.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A COUNTEREXAMPLE TO PATTERICO’S ARGUMENT. It’s logically impossible. A non sequitur.
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 3/7/2007 @ 4:56 amNo. I’m making the obvious point that one can view a certain behavior as undesirable, but nonetheless be opposed to outlawing that behavior. I for instance, find stupidity undesirable, but nonetheless don’t think that the undeniably stupid comments by “The Ace” in this thread should land “The Ace” in jail.
Moops (8fcb37) — 3/7/2007 @ 1:13 pmNo. I’m making the obvious point that one can view a certain behavior as undesirable, but nonetheless be opposed to outlawing that behavior.
Way to avoid the questions.
Don’t worry, I know why. The hole left in your “logic” can be driven through with a tractor trailer.
The Ace (ea76c3) — 3/7/2007 @ 5:55 pmThere’s no need for this, Ace and Moops. I am very anti-abortion but I do not consider myself wise enough to make that decision for my fellow citizens. I also do not consider five Justices on the Supreme Court wise enough either. I want the decision left to the wisdom or folly of the democratic process. LA said that he values his child. I don’t think that we should sneer at him because he does not want to force the rest of us to value our children too. As far as I’m concerned, he’s already on our side on this issue by actions and not words.
nk (db0112) — 3/7/2007 @ 6:27 pm“I don’t think that we should sneer at him because he does not want to force the rest of us to value our children too.”
Yeah! And about those rapists and murderers: Who are we to force on them respect that we happen to have for human life?
Federal Dog (9afd6c) — 3/8/2007 @ 4:51 am#72
Yeah, we’re horrible like that…
Scott Jacobs (90eabe) — 3/8/2007 @ 6:37 amEgypy even the Pharoahs-
Had to import,
Hebrew braceros
If you are going to quote Tom Lehrer, could you clean up the spelling a bit?
From “George Murphy:”
James Cloninger (c36b76) — 3/8/2007 @ 9:28 pmThe movies that you’ve seen
On your television screen
Show his legislative talents at a glance.
Should Americans pick crops? George says “No,
‘Cause no one but a Mexican would stoop so low.”
And after all, even in Egypt, the pharaohs
Had to import
Hebrew braceros.
And I defy anyone to give the source of that limerick.
No comment. 🙂
James Cloninger (c36b76) — 3/8/2007 @ 9:31 pmi dont undrstand…!!!!!!!!!!!!
gary (10530d) — 8/15/2007 @ 12:33 am