Posted on 03/04/2007 8:28:45 AM PST by ajolympian2004
Enter Ann Coulter.
Her "faggot" joke was not just a distraction from all the good that was highlighted and represented at the conference. It was the equivalent of a rhetorical fragging--an intentionally-tossed verbal grenade that exploded in her own fellow ideological soldiers' tent.
There are countless conservatives who bring their children to CPAC. It's a family-friendly event. I brought mine last year and the year before. I met several parents with their kids there this year. We expect CPAC to be a place where conservative role models speak with clarity, passion, and integrity. There are enough spewers of mindless filth, vulgarity, and hatred on TV, at the movies, and in the public schools. We don't expect our children to be exposed to that garbage at the nation's preeminent conservative gathering.
I was in the back of the ballroom and did not see any children in the audience during Coulter's speech. But what if there had been?
Would you want your children hearing the word "faggot" spoken in such a casual and senseless manner? Would you like your first-grader or three-year-old running around the halls of CPAC singing "faggot, faggot, faggot?" Not me. Not anymore than I'd like my toddler singing "gook, gook, gook" or "sambo, sambo, sambo"--favored epithets hurled at conservative minorities by leftist haters groping around in their empty intellectual quivers. There were hundreds of young conservative college students in the ballroom. Would you be proud of your college-age daughter spewing such epithets in her campus debates with leftists?
With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees. At a reception for college students held by the Young America's Foundation, I lambasted the substitution of stupid slurs for persuasion-- be it "faggot" from a conservative or "gook" from a liberal--and urged the young people there to conduct themselves at all times with dignity in their ideological battles on and off campus.
I made something else explicitly clear: Not all of us treat the communication of conservative ideals and ideas as 24/7 performance art. You can and should use humor to convey your message. You can enlighten and entertain--without becoming a tired old schtick. You can joke without becoming the joke.
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The rest of her coverage, great pics from the event and photo album link here -
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006981.htm
It's certainly not that. It's calling time-out upon a clear violation of common decency at a function that supposedly represents ALL Conservatives. Others have also expressed the same reservations of Coulter.
Ann's been getting increasingly caustic in her attacks charged by a vocal segment of her admirers and she's only becoming more effective in branding herself and less likely to attract the desired focus upon her "target". Much like the more liberal Republicans are pushing moderates of the GOP to embrace middle to moderate Democrat party thinking, Ann has been pushing the envelope as to what represents acceptable criticism of others and has little-by-little moved from reasoned debate into outright insult.
I would hope in the future she once again considers returning to engaging in reasonable discourse than simply supplying "air-head" proclamations as she did in her performance at CPAC. I know she's smarter and more capable than that which she demonstrated.
Agree with you, disagree with Malkin. I'm irritated as h*ll with all the Coulter bashers!!
Exactly. They sure do! Ann was just being Ann. Like her or not, she sure as heck doesn't beat around the bush and thankfully, she's not one bit PC.
She spoke only of four women who are using 911 as a tool for activism and Bush bashing.
Is that his brother? That's dangerous stuff in God's eyes, speaking to the dead. Hmmmm. Didn't folks get stoned for that in OT times?
Most kids, even little kids, these days use the F word freely and it ain't faggot.
Saying it isn't so doesn't mean it isn't. And it obviously wasn't a violation of 'common decency' to many. Perhaps the PC mindset has something to do with the 'common decency' perspective you have on calling someone a 'faggot.'
"Others have also expressed the same reservations of Coulter. Ann's been getting increasingly caustic in her attacks charged by a vocal segment of her admirers and she's only becoming more effective in branding herself and less likely to attract the desired focus upon her 'target.'"
'Others have also expressed the same reservations' who are either pandering to the MSM or the PC. So only those who appeal to the public should be allowed to speak, or only those who completely target your preferred liberal policies (such as 'tolerance' of homosexuality)?
"Much like the more liberal Republicans are pushing moderates of the GOP to embrace middle to moderate Democrat party thinking, Ann has been pushing the envelope as to what represents acceptable criticism of others and has little-by-little moved from reasoned debate into outright insult."
Ah, but when moderates do it, y'all call it persuasion and call for the unity of the party behind them. When conservatives do it, it's indecent and insulting and you want `em thrown out of CPAC.
"I would hope in the future she once again considers returning to engaging in reasonable discourse than simply supplying 'air-head' proclamations as she did in her performance at CPAC. I know she's smarter and more capable than that which she demonstrated."
Right, she can't imply she'd call Edwards a faggot, but you can imply she's an air-head. I see how the rules work now. /sarc
Common decency, like common sense, is a myth. Some people have it, some people don't, few people agree on what it is. In any case, if faggot is now a fair term to use in public discourse, it's only a matter of time before kike, spic, nigger, and motherfucker are all on the table. After all, they're only words, no sense in being PC about them. Maybe at the next Republican National Convention we can add, "Building conservative inroads to the nigger community," and "Protecting the nips from the chinks" to the party platform.
(If the mods delete this, I just want you guys to know that I appreciate the irony. But sometimes cognitive dissonance really is the best way to make a point.)
But they are on the table. They're only on the table for liberals, however. Conservatives must leave them there or be called racists or homophobes or some other slur--that's again, completely acceptable from the mouths of the left but laughable from the right (unless used against a right-winger, of course).
"After all, they're only words, no sense in being PC about them. Maybe at the next Republican National Convention we can add, 'Building conservative inroads to the nigger community,' and 'Protecting the nips from the chinks' to the party platform."
Oh, I see, if that was in the party platform, the GOP would be racist...how different that would be from what they call that party now. /sarc
You miss that in defining just which words we can use and having people like you agree with them, the left has defined the debate. You think that in accepting these terms, nothing has happened but a newly 'refined' debate. But what has happened is homosexuality has become a lifestyle, not a deviance, and largely because the actual acts, their participants, and other 'just words' for these things they do are not part of the debate--because they are 'offensive.' Would you find acceptable discussion topics in the common bedroom practices of these people you're defending against Ann's 'indecent' language? Why, no, those are disgusting! But they are what we are discussing! And they're off-putting, not because of the nature of the words, but because the left has banned their discussion, preferring the whole issue in public be one of individual legal license and not moral repulsion.
I am a states' rights libertarian. I believe that these people should be able to pound each other's feces all they want. I also believe states have an ability under the Constitution to ban such behavior (as they did when the Constitution was written), but ultimately, that it is an equally big waste of time for states to do so. Prosecuting consensual crimes is far less productive than prosecuting crimes of force. I do not have to morally approve of their acts to say that government shouldn't bother trying to police them.
That said, I do NOT believe that the left is even doing something as simple as promoting the agenda of 'moral' homosexuality here. They are promoting the idea that immorality cannot be labeled by anyone but THEM, and through government. These are very bad things, letting the government define morality and letting the left decide what that definition will be. This is what Ann specifically is arguing against. This is why I defend her, even celebrate her, while all these fools rush in.
"(If the mods delete this, I just want you guys to know that I appreciate the irony. But sometimes cognitive dissonance really is the best way to make a point.)"
Your point was already made. However, making a point isn't useful in politics these days. Scoring points is, and everyone who has bagged on Ann has encouraged the left to further accumulate them through their 'war by newspeak' tactics.
> We have a presidential candidate who is just like Clinton with women, dresses up like a girl and lived with two homosexuals...
And yet there are many here on FR who defend this guy as "The only one who can beat Hitlery"[tm]-- with no proof, of course. What's scary is that important players in the GOP are backing this guy. What a disaster if he wins the primaries.
I wonder what Ann would say if Rudy the Cutie becomes the nominee? Interesting, if you like your humor macabre :-)
Your the kind of woman I would have like for a mother when i was 14 and am now glad that I did not have. I'll choose quality anytime. I have no interest in white trash and their ways. Thanks for the advice anyway.
You will find, if you choose to listen, that Ann gives as good as she gets.
She goes willingly into the belly of the beast and accepts the hostility, rudeness, and personal innuendoes -- perhaps because she believes her message and her cause is important enough to justify it. Or perhaps she just wants to sell books.
In any case, the sad truth is, she also gives as bad as she gets. If you think she occasionally goes a bit over the top, it's probably because she's struggling in an arena where the Marquis of Queensbury holds little sway.
Ann said that "she would not want to insult gays by associating them with Edwards" - can't blame them!
Well, gee, thanks! I would never have bored a young child by bringing him to CPAC.
This whole things just ludicrous. I don't follow Michelle Malkin closely enough to know what her deal is, but it's clear what Coulter said was a JOKE.
She is not running for office, a point which more than a few seem to miss. She is an author and a commentator.
It's not so much what she said about Johnny Breck that is even relevant; I admire her for kicking the PC beast in the gut.
One of the biggest issues facing this country, one of the worst things the loathesome left has done, is to make people police their vocabularies and their IDEAS. That they've succeeded at, and so much more sewage flows from getting your enemy - conservatives - to censor THEMSELVES.
I mean, it's not like Ann wished anyone DEAD, like psycho Bill Maher, or like she called anyone a NAZI (fill in your leftie of choice), or like she insulted Christians (like Johnny Breck's paid bloggers.)
Yes, you can do all those things if you're a leftist, and you'll be a hero. But say the NEW "F word" and it's as if you flew two 767s into skyscrapers.
Conservatives, c'mon. FOCUS on the REAL issues (and even if I agree with 99 percent of what Michelle Malkin says, she's on a level below Ann Coulter. Being the "Queen of the Blogsphere" (shoot me, that's so freaking embarrassing) is NOT like having multiple books on the New York Times bestseller list. Michelle needs to stop acting as if she's the Coulter alternative. There's room for both, when Michelle gets over herself.)
Julie-Annie is a fruit. It seems Republicans are hell bent on losing this time...
We have this Rosie O'Donnell wing of the Republican Party who equates the Christians with the Taliban.
Like Rosie, everything is gay, gay, gay, or fag, fag, fag...
I am sick of it. Julie-Annie is just their meat puppet.
What I like is full bluntal Nugity (ala Ted Nugent).
I wish TED NUGENT was there at CPAC... That would really make these feminized males want to take their Midol!
Being black or Asian has nothing to do with being a pervert...
They are entirely different things.
I am tired of these people who try to pass some perversion of nature off as a normal thing. It is a fetish, a religion of deviance and I will not bend my knee in acquiescence to it.
Being black or Asian has nothing to do with being a pervert...
They are entirely different things.
I am tired of these people who try to pass some perversion of nature off as a normal thing. It is a fetish, a religion of deviance and I will not bend my knee in acquiescence to it.
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