Posted on 08/01/2007 10:16:30 AM PDT by pabianice
Superb political reporter and sometime blogger Rick Perlstein recently posted this:
Shortly before she died, my grandmother—one of the people, naturally, I loved the most in the world—broke my heart. Celia Perlstein, like most of our grandparents, didn’t get out much in her final years; in fact, for the last few years of her life, I’m not sure she got out of her old folks home at all. I don’t think she really wanted to. She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.
I’d look out of her eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening’s visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O’Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
What he said. Watch the video. Read the rest.
If “the arc of history bends toward justice,” it’s only because people got up off their behinds and started bending it for themselves. Moral progress isn’t something we can count on the rest of the world to take care of for us. If you want to live in a world in which multimillionaire perverts pile up ever-higher fortunes by encouraging Americans to hate and fear one another, simply do nothing. If you want a better world, start thinking about how to make this stuff stop.
Sorry about your grandmother, though...
Tell him, he’s a FReeper.
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Wow. You nailed it here.
That ain’t no “man” worth wasting the time of day to! Just because you have bought into the liberal hate-machine that attacks anything remotely moderate or right-winged.
That ain’t no “man” worth wasting the time of day to! Just because you have bought into the liberal hate-machine that attacks anything remotely moderate or right-winged, don’t claim we are the ones hating: it’s a two way street!
I am not about to defend the Leprechaun after his hate speech against this forum. Screw O’Reilly.
Well said! Where do we go from here indeed. There are dangerous fundamental differences that the leftist PC crowd, and even a few on the right, want to take us in. Differences that are a danger to our country , my community and most importantly my family. Am I supposed to embrace these folks? and say....what?
This whole “hate” rebuttal thing is taking on very concerning dialogue implications. It is being used to effectually shut down speaking up and if it continues down it’s current path we might as well burn the Constitution.
If I am reading this correctly, liberals are in favor of "justice," "[m]oral progress," and a generally better world. Conservatives, presumably, are in favor of injustice, moral backwardness, and generally worse living conditions for most folks. Or, as the author himself puts it, conservatives cherish "a world in which multimillionaire perverts pile up ever-higher fortunes by encouraging Americans to hate and fear one another."
Some people might consider that a rather cartoonish view. To put it as gently as possible.
My aunt is the same way ... though all of her hates and fears are driven by leftists. Evil Republicans, global warming, and so on.
What we're seeing, I think, is both sides of the same coin, and both symptoms of the fact that civil discourse, not to mention reliable information, is almost impossible to find within the MSM.
“I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.”
LOL! What a drama queen.
All I can say is, at least there were writings of his that did not raise my hackles. I never branded any of his writings "hate" I just tried to think of counter arguments and how to source my arguments. Mostly, to just comfort myself. I don't recall exchanging replies with him save for one FR email.
I love to despise people who write screed-a-torials like this.
Guy would rather hate his grandmother than take her to lunch and comfort her in her fear of terrorists who are very, very real.
We don't need guys like that.
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