Ann Coulter may be abusive, but there is not only far worse than Ms. Coulter, the far worse makes Ms. Coulter look like a temper tantrum at an ice cream stand: she ain’t much, and her petulance will pass. But this other stuff is pure hate.

Peace (I hope).

I thank you for the links. But they are only relevant to this discussion if you think that I believe the Right is not nasty. I do not believe that at all. Besides, neither citation speaks to my point: Mr. Krugman, who surely has access to at least ONE example of how the Right is mean to him, i.e., abuses his patriotism, chooses to leave us in the dark. You have given me a link that surely shows that both sides are rather nasty, irrespective of who is proactive and who is reactive. But the link is not from Mr. Krugman.

Dear Stensen,

If Mr. Krugman was a columnist for the Dirtweed Roll and not for the New York Times; if Maureen Dowd and Nicholas Kristof had not both won Pulitzer Prizes but gift certificates for McDonald’s Happy Meals; if John Kerry was not one of the richest men on the planet; then I might agree with you about power vs. weakness. Surely you are not saying that anyone at the New York Times, the most powerful voice in America media if not the world; or that any of these folks is in a position of weakness, are you? Is Dr. Howard Dean calling names — racist to the core, I think — from a position of poverty, impotence, considering he sits atop the DNC?

I am not saying that Ann Coulter is right. In fact, I flat out said that I disagreed with her tactics. But what, really, is her position of power? Does she write for the Times, or even the New Yorker (no enclave of weakness)? Is Westchester County, or southwestern Connecticut, the center of Democratic political and economic weakness; and does Ann make her name out at the Hamptons? Do the Clintons, the Gores, the Kennedys, the Kerrys, the Buffets, the Spielbergs, the Robbins-Sarandons — do all these folks (and many more like them) vacation at the local Motel 6; and do they ever speak from a position of disenfranchisement, or do they ever lack for vehicles through which to speak?

In 2004, when Terry McAuliffe was being interviewed about the Republican National Convention, he began to complain that never in the history of the United States “had there been so many mill…” I believe he meant to say millionaires, but he stopped himself because he knew what his alternative was: if there are too many rich people, are you saying that you’d like to see more poor people? Alas, never before have their been so many women and black millionaires, or Hispanic ones. Never before have there been so many black homeowners, or single parent homeowners. Yes, there is a great disparity. But one could argue that, while America may have the richest rich people on the planet, it also has the richest poor people. Compare the worst in this country to the worst in Haiti, or even to the middle class of Cuba. America has its struggles, but they are often better struggles than elsewhere. And if folks like Mr. Krugman could stop, for one second, from fomenting wrath at the wealthy, a wrath that is generated by envy, then perhaps we could redress certain injustices. But we cannot until the rhetoric on both sides is toned way, way down.

Lastly, a recent post at Daily Kos by SusanG discussed the increased wealth of Democrats in America. She spoke to the more all-out Marxists in the Kos-sphere, that perhaps they should chill a bit knowing that Markos (the DK founder) and others like him, not only deserved their new-found wealth, they had come by it by honest gain. The inference, of course (and not a subtle one, I should add), is that Republican wealth is patently dishonest. Thus, class distinctions are unjust if the rich are rich improperly; they are to be praised if the rich get that way by “speaking truth to power.” But the “truth to power” industry is not only an industry, exploiting markets for huge windfalls, it is entirely ignored by those media and economists who earn their cash denigrating capitalism.

Again, all this to say that I believe Mr. Krugman is mistaken, and that two wrongs — political ad hominems from the Left and the Right — do not make a right.

Peace to you all,

BG

I would say: There is a difference between calling names from positions of power, and calling names from a minority status.

The Dems do have clear positions, but they’re not all the same positions. Further, it’s difficult to get heard when shouting against those in the bully pulpit.

Class-warfare would be decreasing if the income gap was decreasing.

Check it out:
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/unhinged-broken-wheel.html
and
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/01/eliminationist-chorus.html

I have not forgotten the harridan (which is what I’ve playfully called Ms. Coulter); I have not forgotten the “harpy” to which you refer. And I have not forgotten the countless, and they are countless, times the President of the United States has been called a traitor, a war criminal, the world’s greatest terrorist, an idiot (with a master’s mind capable of world domination), illegitimate, anti-American, a dictator, demagogue, Hitler, theocrat, and so on. It is into this sort of maelstrom that Ms. Coulter leaps, and, though I disagree with her tactics, I will not overlook the fact that she clearly packs a potent punch. It is not her invective that bothers liberals; it’s that she is not a pushover. Liberals are rife with invective, condescension, vitriol. To deny this is to be absolutely in the dark. I am not saying anything unusual; I am not picking on anyone. One visit to Daily Kos proves this about liberals, particularly if you are a conservative with an opinion. Take two seconds to read any Maureen Dowd column; listen to Mr. Murtha talk about Rove and Co. sitting on their backsides in air conditioned offices. Listen to Al Franken, listen to Senator Reid. Invective is all over the place. But the broader point is this: the usually lofty, sophisticated and urbane Left suddenly turns — when Ann Coulter walks into the room — into a bunch of Puritans, pressing their fingers into their ears. They can handle the ad hominems of Michael Moore or Harry Bellafonte, but they turn pale when Ann Coulter opens her mouth. They can handle a Lenny Bruce-type, but can’t handle a leggy blonde who speaks with a coquettish smile, and does so without a single obscenity or profanity. Why this sudden high dudgeon of the Left? Has anyone ever taken a look at the sort of things written, by the Left, about Ann Coulter? They’d make the devil blush.

As for calling the Democrats the party of “cut and run”, calling them the party of cut and confuse might be more accurate. Democrats called for increased troop levels in Iraq at about the same time they called for them to be reduced; they called for increased troop levels — which would have given the enemy more targets to hit and thus increased the number of dead Americans — at the same time they were arguing that Mr. Bush and Co. had spread the military “too thin”. And this from the same folks who now believe the war is, in its entirety, based on lies and false premises. Plus, Hillary Clinton’s unforgettable and utterly vacuous remarks re: Iraq over the weekend bolster this point:

“I do not think it is a smart strategy, either, for the president to continue with his open-ended commitment, which I think does not put enough pressure on the new Iraqi government. Nor do I think it is smart strategy to set a date certain. I do not agree that that is in the best interests.…”

We should all fly our flags half-staff to signal our sorrow over such emptiness. Or perhaps we should fly our flags upside down to signal our distress. Not that anyone would come to help us, mind you. It would just be fun to do.

Peace.

BG

Let us first point out that if you are at all interested in democracy, then you must agree that it is at least interesting that “gay marriage” was overwhelmingly defeated by most Americans (who voted in the 12 referenda to which you refer; and it fails in most if not all polls). If I remember correctly, the numbers showed that even most Democrats in those states voted against gay marriage; and even if not most, then a significiant number who voted for Kerry nonetheless voted against gay marriage. And to really fry the brain, I recall a C-Span post-2004 election discussion on voter behaviors, and these two tidbits came to my notice, namely, that 24 percent of gays voted for Bush and 25 percent of evangelicals voted for Kerry. Even if these numbers are inflated, they wreak havoc on our presuppositions. (And what do we do with those gays who are on record opposing gay marriage?)

Also, since I am thoroughly transparent about where I am writing from (New Hampshire), then you would know that I could not have voted as a “one of the dumb ayshes”, as you so delicately put it, since there was no such referendum offered to the NH electorate. But your question, no doubt asked so that you might find another reason to insert “dumb ayshes”, is irrelevant. But what is not irrelevant is that Mr. Krugman has suggested that Bush suddenly dumped on the electorate something unforeseen about Social Security reform. Bush did no such thing. And that is the point I managed to criticize.

Lastly, this line of yours is helpful:

If you are serious about this, then you’re a dumb ass. If you’re not, then you’re a dumb ass. Yep… you’re a dumb ass.

Of course, the “this” under discussion is Mr. Krugman’s failure to list one bit of invective hurled his way that proves that “the great bulk of it” comes from the right. This is an obscenely foolish remark to make, particularly as an essayist: he must have a long list of sins from which he could pull examples, and yet he does not pull a single one. Wow. For this oversight, Mr. Krugman fails the simplest rule in Writing The Essay 101: Show, don’t say. Even if we permit that Mr. Krugman is writing what “everyone knows”, he still makes a mistake, for the “everyone” would only be readers who think identically to him. In other words, it is clear he is writing to the choir, and that just stinks.

But your comment proves my point. I have not hurled any invective here. You have. Thrice. Nay, four times. The ad hominem fallacy is just about the easiest, cheapest thing to do in discourse. Interlocuters who resort to such tactics weaken their arguments. Mr. Krugman is not one who uses the ad hominem sparingly, it seems; even this essay of his — one about class struggle — he manages to turn into an anti-Bush, anti-Republican screed. In doing that, he takes away any real possibility of discussing the actual causes of, and any real solutions for, class warfare in America. I mean, it is clear that both sides of the aisle contribute to class struggles. Mr. Krugman blinds us to what the problems are because he is interested in using class to foment anger against his opponents.

Peace.

BG

Your criticism of Krugman’s accurate interpretation of Bush and the gay marriage/Social Security issue is a howler.

Fact: ONE WEEK after Karl Rove arranged to have gay marriage referenda appear as refernda in twelve states concurrent with the 2004 election and, after months of haveing the issue as a mainstay on its senatorial agenda, the gay marriage amendment did not make the TOP 10 priorities for the Republican Senate agenda. BG: were you one of the dumb ayshes who voted for Bush in 2004 b/c of gay marriage or because you wanted to gut Social Security?

“Alas, I wish he would SHOW (don’t tell) us the gross abuses hurled at the left by conservatives.”

Spare me the crocodile tears. If you are serious about this, then you’re a dumb ass. If you’re not, then you’re a dumb ass. Yep… you’re a dumb ass.