Posted on 01/21/2011 3:28:11 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
.......In sum, the new age of civility is a political response to an acknowledged tragic event that was apolitical. It is intended to tone down growing political and media opposition to the status quo in Washington. And bipartisan friendly dialogue cannot and will not be adhered to by those now calling for its implementation, since divisive language often achieves what an unpersuasive ideology cannot. The hate-filled rhetoric of a Michael Moore (who sat in Jimmy Carter’s reserved box at the 2004 Democratic convention) or a Cindy Sheehan (the darling of the press and Democratic politicians at Camp Casey in 2005) was cruel, lunatic, and illogical — and helped demonize President Bush as some sort of monster rather than the center-right moderate who had pressed for No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, called for religious tolerance, warned against anti-Muslim violence after 9/11, won two bipartisan congressional authorizations for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and implemented the largest medical-relief plan for Africa in U.S. history.
So I predict that 18 months from now the president himself will still be calling for a new civility in the manner of his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention — and will once again adopt the sorts of over-the-top metaphors, similes, allusions, and rough-stuff politics that got him elected senator in 2004 and president in 2008, and pushed his health-care legislation through in 2009. If anything, the language of division will be shriller even than in 2010, as the administration grasps that loaded language, coupled with calls for an end to rancor, must now do what a record of unpopular governance cannot.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
It is important that we not give an inch, or back down.
I like Gen George Patton's resolve. What follows is a small excerpt from a longer (and a bit more profane but spot on) speech to the troops: "....When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. ...I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!...."
I’m not about to forget Obama telling Latinos they have to “punish our enemies”, ie. Republicans, or grinning and laughing it up at the “joke” from Wanda Sykes that she hopes Rush Limbaugh dies of kidney failure. And where is Obama’s outrage over a Democrat comparing Republicans to Nazis on the floor of the House? So much for “civility”.
The caller on Rush last week nailed it—Civility is the new censorship.
Hate is disagreeing with a Democrat. The majority of Americans object to the direction the Democrats are taking the country and are speaking out about it. Hence, the “climate of hate.”
I, for one, don’t plan to shut-up.
More V.D. Hanson:
“...... First, Barack Obama is the most partisan politician since Richard Nixon. His brief Senate record, his health-care partisanship of 2009, his snickering amid audience applause after the “inadvertent” middle-fingering of Hillary Clinton, and his polarizing metaphorical speech (e.g., knives, guns, kicking ass, getting angry, getting in their face, hostage takers, trigger fingers, tearing up) all attest to that.
That Obama is a postracial mellifluent Chicago politician does not mean that he is not a Chicago politician. That he blasts the “fat cats,” the “stupidly” acting police, and the limb-lopping surgeons, or that his attorney general calls the American people “cowards,” is typical, not aberrant. For 2012, President Obama will have raised $1 billion in cash. He knows from 2008 (“cling to guns or religion,” “typical white person,” “gun to a knife fight”) that his own emotionalism and polarization both earn him cash and create the “them” against “us” (minorities, youth, gays, women) binaries that might draw attention away from an agenda that a majority simply does not want. Obama has always used polarizing politics, coupled with calls for bipartisanship, to great effect, and he surely — as we just saw again in October 2010 (“punish,” “backseat,” “enemies”) — cannot stop now.
Second, the country is center-right. A Watergate, a Perot candidacy, an insurgency in Iraq, or fear of a 1929-style meltdown can on occasion elect a Democratic president, usually one with a southern accent that suggests latent conservatism. In other words, crises, costly wars, and scandal are the necessary roads to power for contemporary liberalism. Hysterical speech in accentuating the climate of collapse pays dividends.....”
Rush is speaking a deeper truth lately.
I'll add that dealing with the left is like dealing with an intelligent alcoholic -- its ability to deceive and manipulate and subject-change and crazy-make should never be underestimated, and one should be on guard constantly, doubting its every word and position, assuming that everything it does is tricksy.
Obama's speech is a good example. Lots of our guys were quick to praise him for it since he implicitly chastened the Krugman types for their overreach. But what it really did was accept the premise that we need to "tone it down", whose function VDH describes here:
In other words, the calls for a general toning down of rhetoric translate far more into a toning down of both an effective media opposition and a rising political obstruction to the Obama agenda. “Can’t we all get along?” in essence means, “Can’t we all just keep quiet and keep going on with the big-government, agreed-on politics of the last fifty years?”
Indeed!
And this mamby-pamby idea from the Left of all Congresss co-mingling and sitting together at the State of the Union is more of the Left’s “total quality management” of us.
“In sum, the new age of civility is a political response to an acknowledged tragic event that was apolitical. “
when you believe in socialism, nothing is apolitical.
“Civility” means censorship.
Good ol’ George Patton. He was right in that you can’t win a war and be polite at the same time.
“Rush is speaking a deeper truth lately.”
He just about always does.
As for Little Lord Fauntleroy’s speeches, Karl Marx couldn’t have said them better. I’m still appalled at the number of people who heard him say he was going to redistribute our wealth and then went and voted for him.
He’s pealed off a few more layers lately.
Yeah, I’m hoping not too many Pubbies let themselves get duped into that one.
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