Hate Speech and Academic Freedom
Should a professor who says she "hates Republicans" keep her job?
I fully endorse my co-blogger and former teaching colleague Steven Taylor’s assessment of University of Michigan Chair of Communications Susan J. Douglas’ “I hate Republicans” column. It’s a phenomenally poor example of communications in that’s it’s guaranteed to alienate those who might otherwise be open to persuasion.
I’d go further and question Douglas’ continued membership on the faculty, much less a leadership role, at a state institution.
I’m a near-absolutist on academic freedom and have zero problem with vehement Republicans, Democrats, Communists, or whathaveyou on faculty so long as there’s some reasonable diversity of viewpoints. But to espouse hatred of a particular group, particularly a group that a large portion of the student body is likely to associate with, has, to say the least, a chilling effect on discourse. Further, her column will forevermore be prima facie grounds for appeal for any student of Republican persuasion unsatisfied with their grade in Dr. Douglas’ class.
Lots of professors have articulated the substantive themes in Douglas’ column. Arguing that Congressional Republicans bear disproportionate responsibility for the poisonous climate in our country is well within the bounds of academic freedom. Ditto actively endorsing Democratic causes and candidates.
Doing these things may, unfortunately, make Republican-leaning students fearful of expressing contrary views in those professors’ classrooms taint students’ views of the professors teaching. Accordingly, a large number of professors steadfastly avoid making their political views known. Others, myself included, have always thought it best to be open about their opinions and simply observed the duty to make clear to students (particularly undergraduates) that there is room for legitimate debate on these issues and ensure that grading is based on mastery of the material and not conformity of viewpoint.
Douglas, however, crossed a line that can’t easily be uncrossed. “I hate Republicans” is not quite in the same species as “I hate Jews”—much less ”I hate niggers”—but it’s in the same genus. Aside from Republicans not having suffered the same history of discrimination as various ethnic and racial groups, it’s also an affiliation of choice rather than birth. Then again, most University of Michigan undergraduates are likely to have “inherited” their political party affiliation from the parents.
No. No it is not, James, it is not the same species, the same genus, the same anything. Are we in danger of college professors rounding up Republicans?
You belong to a racist, sexist, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, rage and hate-fueled party, James. Your party preaches hate night and day, day and night. It spews hate from every orifice. Has done so for at least the last six years, and will continue to do so.
It’s not only okay to hate Republicans at this point, it’s damned near unavoidable. Hate creates hate. Big surprise.
Most people inherit their political party affiliation from the parents, not just Uuniverty of Michigan undergraduates. I venture a strong guess that most undergrads at Oklahoma, Dartmouth, Alabama, or Brigham Young inherit their party affiliation from parents.
Michael, you sir have become a bigot. Please tone it down. I share many of your espoused views, but this goes too far.
@michael reynolds:
While I think that characterization over-the-top, I wouldn’t argue that it’s out of bounds for a college professor to make it. But saying “I hate Republicans” makes it impossible for her to teach Republicans. We wouldn’t tolerate “I hate Muslims” or “I hate Orthodox Jews.”
@al-Ameda:
Of course. I wasn’t implying that UMich undergrads were somehow unusual; I singled them out because they’re her current and future students.
@James Joyner:
I hate Nazis. I hate Communists. I hate radical Islamists. There’s a difference between a race or a religion and a political ideology.
She hates a set of ideas. She’s allowed to hate a set of ideas, particularly a set of ideas that is itself predicated on race hatred. I’m a Jew, can I not hate Nazis? Can a black man hate the Aryan Nations?
Couldn’t disagree with your article more, James. Of course she shouldn’t lose her job. I don’t even see a problem with her article. I disagree with her politically, but she wasn’t making a political argument so much as writing an article about political hate. She discussed the way we hate, why we hate, and what the costs of that hate are. I think her main argument is wrong, but it’s fine for her to make it. In terms of political point-scoring, articles like this and comments like Michael’s help Republicans immensely. But that’s not why I’m ok with her article. Academic freedom isn’t why I’m ok with it either. I’m ok with it because it’s a reasonably well done article.
@James Joyner:
Why? Seriously, why? I can’t imagine a reason it would.
The party that picked up the mantle of George Wallace and has as its intellectual standard-bearer a radio loudmouth who preaches hate night and day, doesn’t want anyone to hate them. Gotta love it. Apparently hate is supposed to be a one-way street.
@michael reynolds: She didn’t say she hated the ideas, but the people who believe them. (You don’t get much clearer than the first sentence in her article.) She goes into the psychological characteristics of a Republican mind to further show the reasoning behind why she hates them. Her article discusses the tactics of Republican politicians. She’s not talking about ideas.
@Pinky: As mentioned, it leaves open the possibility that she would grade Republican students lower than the average, or at least could easily lead to the perception of such. She is complicating her own job.
@Tillman:
There’s no sharp clear line between tactics and ideas. The tactics include “Let’s keep black people, brown people and students” from voting. Is that a tactic or an idea? Is that a thought process or a political stand?
Let’s take it somewhere slightly different. Is cross-burning a tactic or a political idea? Is it okay to hate people who burn crosses?
What Republicans want is cost-free hate. They want to use hate for political advantage while protesting that hey, it’s just a tactic. It’s just this little thing we do to rally “the base.” They’re like those people who think adding, “just kidding” after whatever obnoxious thing they say sanitizes them.
Sure we demonize poor undocumented Mexicans but hey, we still like Tequila, so we’re okay, we’re regular folks. Okay, so we rush to defend any cop who shoots a black man, but hey, we loved the Cosby Show, so don’t blame us.
Well, sorry, no. You can’t pander to racists, gay-bashers, killer cops, and the whole panoply of right-wing crazies, and then wash your lilly-white hands and pretend it was all just part of some game.
I though her article was tastefully done. It gave context to exactly what she meant about the word “hate” and how she evolved to that point. I also understand that the title can put some people off. However, that quickly becomes a simple-minded view of things after reading the article.
@michael reynolds: she’s probably too dumb to realize she “hates” conservatives instead of republicans- there are moderates and they don’t all go to church let alone look down on others for their beliefs.
To be clear: the CIA and Bush administration torture folks, lie about it, break all sorts of laws, but James says there’s nothing to be done. A professor states an opinion, though, so now there must be consequences — gotta fire her!
@Pinky: I find myself completely agreeing with Pinky.
I would add that in addition to reading the article, I read the comments. I’d not been aware of In These Times. It’s apparently a small progressive magazine. But it appears to have attracted a set of commenters about like POLITICO, although perhaps some conservative site linked to it and these are atypical. You can see a number of examples of hatred being expressed by the other side, and perhaps gain some sympathy for Douglas developing an attitude.
@bill:
No, sorry, no. I for one have no problem with conservatives. My problem with Republicans is that they stopped being conservatives. There is nothing remotely “conservative” about torture, or about race-baiting, or scapegoating immigrants. Those are not conservative beliefs, they’re aszhole beliefs.
Conservatives believe we should have the minimum amount of government we need to keep the country functioning. Republicans believe we need a government that has control over every woman’s womb, and shoots unarmed people down in the streets. Swaggering around in a restaurant with a gun on your hip, while a black man who picks up a pellet gun in a Wal-Mart is gunned down, is not conservative, it’s very Republican. Attacking science is not conservative, it’s Republican. Rush Limbaugh is not a conservative any more than Father Coughlin was a conservative.
The closest thing to an actual conservative in politics right now is the guy in the White House.
No problem with conservatives. I sometimes (not always) disagree with conservatives. I can sit down and have a drink with a conservative, we can talk, we can find common ground. But I despise Republicans as hate-mongers, as cowards, as enemies of democracy, as liars and brainwashers of the gullible, as people who harm my country for their own selfish motives.
@bill: Well, there are no moderate Republicans left in my state, so far as I can tell. Or if there are they keep their heads low to avoid the hatred of their fellow Republicans and the snarling condemnations of them as RINOs.
I generally don’t talk about hating Republicans. I am perfectly willing to openly state that I have no respect for them. None. In my view there are Republicans who preach despicable beliefs, Republicans who reject facts no matter how thoroughly they are proven, Republicans who lie about those who do not share their ideology and Republicans who support all of the other types of Republicans either actively or passively.
Once upon a time I was able to vote for Republicans. That began to change with Reagan. He lied about the economy. He claimed to be able to balance the budget while cutting taxes and massively boosting the defense budget. I knew that wasn’t possible. He pushed the GOP’s partnership with the Religious Right. Since then Republicans have moved further and further in the “right” and become more and more reactionary and fact free. They actually consider David Barton a historian. They think that the Free Market can solve any problem. They have no consideration for the environment, with calls to eliminate the EPA becoming more common. The majority of them don’t think evolution is true (48% not true, 43% true, 9% don’t know).
I have no problem proclaiming myself to be an anti-Republican.
This not a “hate the sin, love the sinner” type scenario. The Republican Party today is not the same Republican Party I began voting for in 1980. Today’s average Republican is mean, racist, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, unreasonable, and down-right nasty. For proof, link to the original article and read the comments. (I know, Doug; don’t read the f*****g comments.) Or saunter over to Townhall.com or FoxNation and get a load of what’s being spewed over there.
Douglas substantiates her disdain for Republicans by their very acts. When they stop trying to dictate and legislate to women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies; when they cease their xenophobic meandering in the wilderness of the inhumane, bashing brown-skinned immigrants, cuz let’s face it …; and when they move past their unreflective and unrepentant propensity to justify police harassing, shooting and killing unarmed black people, while with the same breath, justifying Cliven Bundy and those idiots who swarmed down to Nevada pointing guns at federal agents; THEN maybe Douglas will sound unreasonable. But she doesn’t sound unreasonable today.
But not, it seems, on torture.
What a stupid and absurd statement. Not only is it not in the same genus, it’s not even on the same planet.
@James Joyner:
But we would tolerate “I hate fascists” or “I hate Nazis” or “I hate Klansmen” or “I hate
Communists.”
Really, it’s OK to hate odious people who espouse odious things.
In response to the revelations that the Bush regime kidnapped, tortured, raped, sexually humiliated and murdered helpless prisoners, James shrugged his shoulders, renounced any idea that anyone should be held accountable, and said, in effect, hey, whadda ya gonna do?
In response to a professor writing an article, James says it’s a line that can’t easily be uncrossed.
I guess everyone has their own priorities.
Considering that the modern Republican Party is hell bent on continuing the discrimination against various ethnic and racial groups, I think there is something deeply, darkly amusing about that statement.
“I hate Republicans” is not the same species as “I hate Jews”. Not the same genus, family, order, class, phylum or kingdom either. People do hateful things, so you hate them. Entirely different from hating people based on skin color or broad classification of religion (religion is fuzzy — there is Christianity, and then there is Westboro Church Christianity, one of which is pretty inherently hateful).
The dominant wing of the Republican Party has no interest in discourse or compromise with anyone, and their positions and tactics are just plain offensive. The rest of the party enables this behavior. They have disgusted me.
I used to be a Republican. I voted for Republicans. Now, I would sooner vote for a pedophile than a Republican. And that pretty clearly shows that I, too, hate Republicans.
@michael reynolds: You belong to a racist, sexist, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, rage and hate-fueled party, James. Your party preaches hate night and day, day and night. It spews hate from every orifice. Has done so for at least the last six years, and will continue to do so.
James is a Democrat?
@Rafer Janders:
Sorry, but no, it’s not. And I don’t believe that most people here who are saying it’s ok to hate Republicans even mean that. I feel just as strongly about the modern Republican party as Michael, but I know plenty of Republicans and I don’t hate a single one of them, and like quite a few. There are a very few that are not even worth saying “hello” to, but I still don’t hate them.
I’m with James on this one, with the exception that I would like to hear her side of the story. She was obviously trying to be provocative, so maybe this just comes out wrong. But if she really hates Republicans, then she shouldn’t be teaching them. And if you can’t teach a significant portion of your student body, then you are a liability to the faculty.
I guess I am the only one who is going to point out that for all the crimes of racism when it comes to Republicans, it is the University of Michigan where Dr. Douglas works that was nailed by the Supreme Court for discriminating against whites in its admission policy. How soon everyone has forgotten that during the Gratz Vs Bollinger lawsuit from a decade ago that the University of Michigan was caught red-handed using separate and unequal admission standards. I guess DR Douglas has forgotten that a decade ago that the University of Michigan admitted in court that it was more advantageous to declaring oneself black on the admission application that having a perfect SAT test score of 1600.
@DA: Because they’re entirely different things. Torturing people, even those we’re pretty sure are terrorist ringleaders, is worse than simply declaring one’s hate for a third of one’s fellow countrymen. The former is immoral and illegal while the second just makes comity difficult.
The thing is, though, that while I condemn the Bush administration’s authorization of torture, the broad brushes of it were approved by Congress and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Further, the worst of the abuses took place over a short period after the 9/11 attacks and were halted more than a decade ago. We stopped torturing well before Bush left office and Bush left office seven years ago. There’s no appetite for punishing Bush, very little good that would come from it even if there were, and quite a bit of harm.
Johnson, on the other hand, is an active professor at a state university and declared that she hates a third of her student body in a magazine column. That makes it untenable to allow her to remain in a position of power over said students. That would be obvious if she’d written “I hate black people,” “I hate Jews,” or “I hate Catholics.”
@James Joyner: First, I have a theory that one of the defining traits of conservatives is a lack of any sense of proportion. You’re demonstrating it.
Second, let’s try it your way. The last Republican president did huge damage to this country and to the world. He tried to privatize SS before a huge market crash. He pushed through an unpaid for Medicare Part D by flat out lying about the costs. He cut taxes leaving a large deficit in good economic times, which partially tied the hands of his successor in dealing with said crash. He started two large foreign wars, the second for no good reason whatsoever, and totally mismanaged both, resulting in the deaths of 4,000 US troops and a hundred thousand or more natives of the countries we invaded. He blew up the deficit by not raising taxes for his wars, asking people to go shopping instead. He failed to prevent the biggest financial crash in 80 years.
Republican politicians formed a symbiotic relationship with a right wing media machine, creating a positive feedback loop that has driven a quarter or more of the electorate completely into lala land where fealty to the Constitution demands we somehow “take back” the country from a Kenyan, socialist, fascist, usurper who was Constitutionally elected. Twice.
The leadership of the party explicitly set out to sabotage the newly elected Democratic President. To do so they did everything they could to prevent an effective response to the recession. Despite that he passed national health care, which they are determined to destroy for no reason except that he did and personal political gain. They are now determined to destroy “Obamacore” for no reason except that they attached his name to it despite his having little to do with it. And as we speak, they are furiously trying to figure out how to make an outrage out of reversing a totally failed policy toward Cuba.
Republicans are quite literally destroying the world by preventing a response to AGW. And doing so because they are bought and paid for by a bunch or corporatist wanna be oligarchs. And some significant share of them are covert Dominionists.
Ahh. I feel better now.
But some of them are nice people.
@James Joyner:
Yes, they certainly are. And shockingly, in the case that involves serious wrongdoing by powerful officials of the Republican party, you come out in favor of doing absolutely nothing about it. In the case that involves someone of the opposite political persuasion, you think the maximum possible penalty must be applied. It’s almost as if you’re a partisan hack with no moral compass.
Why is it the party of “tolerance” always openly espouses hatred? Hmmmmm?
@Jack: We’re not all that tolerant toward actions that damage the country.
Would it be inappropriate to go over to Amazon, find Mr. reynolds’ author page, and post quotations from his comments there, along with a link where would-be readers of his can see for themselves his sincere beliefs?
@James Joyner: “There’s no appetite for punishing Bush, very little good that would come from it even if there were, and quite a bit of harm.”
It’s odd how no good can ever come from punishing rich, white, powerful men for huge crimes they commit like torture and murder and fraud so enormous it takes down the entire global economy, and yet nothing but good can apparently come from making sure that poor black men spend decades in jail for minor drug crimes.
James: “I’d go further and question Douglas’ continued membership on the faculty, much less a leadership role, at a state institution.”
James, we have faculty who have conspired to torture people, who have actually conducted torture (IIRC, some psych/medical people). We have faculty who advocate torture (Coulter, Dershowitz).
Nuremburg them in the quad at graduation, and I’ll agree with you.
Until then, she’s saying nothing that your radio hosts are not saying, that your news network is not saying, that your priests are not saying, and that your politicians are not saying.
@DA: I’d have the exact same reaction to a professor publishing a column beginning with “I hate Democrats.” It’s simply an untenable position for a professor to be in vis-a-vis her students.
@wr: That’s a non sequitur. I happen to think the drug war has been a disaster and should end forthwith. But we’ve made a determination through the democratic process to criminalize drug use and to pass absurd “three strikes” laws. We also made a determination through the democratic process to re-elect Bush and Cheney to a second term and to oust from office politicians who opposed overreacting to the 9/11 attacks.
@Barry:
I didn’t realize Coulter was on anyone’s faculty. I”d think her disqualified for the same reasons as Douglas. As for Dershowitz, he’s simply advocating an intellectual position with which I vehemently disagree. That’s perfectly within the bounds of his job description.
She’s not a pundit or priest; shes a college professor. She’s a state employee in a position of power over students and has gone on the record saying that she hates roughly a third of them.
More importantly, not registering as a Republican doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid her hate. She says Republicans, then lists off a litany of positions that someone cannot hold if they hope to avoid her hate and any vengeful actions she might take against those she hates.
Nor does it appear, even in the “communications” department that she would permit the exposition on the ideas she despises in “enquiry by contest, by confrontation, by argument and disputation, by putting forward a hypothesis and testing it.” Even as a training exercise.
Yes, aside from that, Republicans are the real victims!!!
@James Joyner:
You belong to a party that holds real, actual power by virtue of race-baiting etc.. but you object to a professor expressing her strong disapproval of same.
You have no problem profiting from hate, you don’t like being hated yourself.
How about some of your colleagues? How many of them hold positions that are a consequence of GOP politics to some degree? How many of their paychecks rely on the fortunes of a party that preaches and practices hate?
Profiting from hate is fine, saying you hate people who profit from hate, that’s a problem for you.
Absent race-baiting, the GOP is a minor party with no Washington goodies to hand out. Right? We both know the GOP cannot hold Congress or the White House without appealing to the racist vote. That is a fact. You don’t have any of the plums without appealing to racial and gender bias.
But that’s not where you draw the line. No, you draw the line at being called out for it.
It’s a morally untenable position.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
That would probably help my position in the “community” since I’m in the dog house with liberals for being the only guy – literally the only one in kidlit – to speak up in defense of Daniel Handler. To you I’m a wild-eyed liberal, and to them I’m a reactionary apologist.
From Mr. Reynolds:
“It’s not only okay to hate Republicans at this point, it’s damned near unavoidable. Hate creates hate.”
If it is ok to hate Republicans by the faculty at Uof M, then most likely Republican students would get worse grades because of the Republican affiliation, assuming if their political positions were known?
Given that Republicans “…belong to a racist, sexist, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, rage and hate-fueled party, James. Your party preaches hate night and day, day and night. It spews hate from every orifice.”
Should students that are Republicans even be admitted to universities? Shouldn’t a person, who by definition hates so many groups of people, be disqualified?
At the very least, if you have any hiring authority, shouldn’t Republicans be shunned and denied the job because of the hate they would bring to the office/workplace?
@MarkedMan: I agree with you that there’s no reason to hate bad people and/or people you disagree with. I don’t agree with you that you can’t teach, or shouldn’t be teaching, people you hate. I can both teach and learn from people I hate. I mean, look at Rafer. He’s acting as if everything James says must be analyzed in terms of James’s support of torture. Rafer has willingly made himself uneducable. But people don’t have to do that. We can disagree on things and still iron them out, or at least talk civilly about them and other things. Rafer apparently can’t. He’s guaranteed that he will be no smarter tonight than he was this morning. That’s his choice.
@JWJ: Would you give someone a lower grade because you hated them? Why are we assuming that this teacher would?
I live in the red area of a purple state. Most of the people I know are Republican and conservative. I like just about all of them. I think that if you hate someone for their political affiliations you are most likely letting yourself being manipulated by your own side’s media. AFAICT, generating anger is a primary purpose for them. It is more addictive than most of the drugs we consider to be addictive.
That said, with the anonymity granted by the internet we often (usually?) see the worst in people. Really hateful things are often said by people who probably wouldn’t say it in person. Add to that the fact the extremism in politics is now heavily rewarded. Campaign advisors have become very good at motivating the “base” so that primaries are now just as or even more important then the general election. You get nominated by appealing to the most extreme members of your own party. Anonymity and extremism is a toxic mix.
What this professor did was stupid, made worse by her being the Communications Chair. As a free speech advocate I hope they don’t fire her, but it seems like it at least merits a demotion from chair or something. She could have done a lot better job of communicating her dislike of Republican beliefs and positions.
Steve
@JWJ:
No. Discrimination is an action. Hate is an emotion. We are free to feel, not always free to act.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Hey, everyone needs a hobby. Why ask us to justify how you spend your free time?
@Pinky:
Would you hold that it’s okay to, for example, hate a murderer? If so, why would it be wrong to hate a person who advocated for that murder?
If it is okay to hate a person who would drag a helpless child from his classroom, throw him in the back of a van, and send him to a country he’s never known, where he has no family, no friends and is likely to end up begging on the streets in a violent city? I find that kind of thing hateful. And that’s the GOP’s immigration policy.
What you reveal is the essential unseriousness of Republicans. Operating from a position of white privilege, you’re actually surprised that anyone would hate you for advocating the ruining of some child’s life. To you and to James, it’s all a game. Hey, you can’t get mad over a game, right?
Because it’s not real to you. It’s real as hell to undocumented people, to black men walking the streets unarmed, to families that go bankrupt off medical bills and lose their home because daddy has cancer. It’s not real to you, or to James, because you are both members of the protected class, so the destruction your policies wreak never touch you, personally. So hey, it’s all just in good fun!
Sorry, no. You people hurt other people. Real, actual, living, breathing, feeling people.
@michael reynolds: So you lost cred among the hard left because you stuck up for an Occupy supporter who made a joke with racial overtones? Wow. What a terrible burden.
BTW, I made the proposition purely as an exercise in applied morality. I wouldn’t attempt to harm you financially for your statements here. That would violate my own personal sense of ethics.
Which, I’m sure, you would argue don’t exist, because of my political beliefs.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the concept of you suffering financial consequences from your freely-chosen statements. But I won’t be the agent of that action, nor would I advise anyone else do it.
On the other hand, I’d be quite impressed if you posted your own political views over on your author’s page, expressing your contempt and hatred for a sizable percentage in your readers and potential readers.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Dude, I’m all over Twitter and Facebook denouncing guns and nothing pisses off more people than that. I’m all over Twitter and Facebook defending Handler, which pisses off a whole different constituency. I’m all over Medium denouncing torture – approved of by 60% of my potential readership. I have a beloved main character who’s an undocumented Honduran. I have multiple gay characters. I wrote the first interracial romance in middle grade. I’m also, by the way, all over Twitter denouncing the cave-in to North Korea, and which studio owns movie rights to one of my books and TV rights to another? You guessed it: Sony. I’ve also frequently denounced Fox News which is corporate stable mate to my publisher.
Does that sound like I’m afraid of blowback from expressing my opinions? Virtually all writers are liberals, most of them to my left. 90% of the movies you see, the books you read, the TV shows you watch, the songs you rock out to, were produced by flaming liberals who despise Republicans.
Republicans could fix that, they could start doing all that artistic production themselves if they developed empathy and imagination. But of course then they wouldn’t be Republicans.
It’s hysterical that Republicans think that after years of endorsing bigotry, denying science, cheering on torture, ranting about freeloaders using health-care, etc. it will turn out okay for them socially. No one is entitled to respect or credibility or not being considered a creep. Furthermore, the distance that a lot of members of the GOP have enjoyed is a privilege–it’s not a right. If you show up endlessly on the side of bigotry, stupidity, and cruelty but in banal settings come off as ‘reasonable’, people have a right to both inquire what exactly goes on inside you and then to draw conclusions when your answers are strange and autistic.
The idea that a set of rules should now be in play–how to deal with the nice man who thinks climate change is a conspiracy and Dick Cheney a moral person without ever hurting his feelings–wherever you go is a fantasy. We are no more obliged to like toadies than we are their leaders.
@James Joyner: “That’s a non sequitur”
Of course it’s not a non-sequitur — although perhaps I confused things by mentioning drugs. We throw poor people in jail for being unable to pay a parking ticket, and then hold them there until they can raise thousands to pay court costs. We jail poor people for anything. And we never jail rich white people for anything — not for theft, not for fraud, not for crimes against humanity.
And yes “we” agree to criminalize the things poor people do and excuse the things that rich people do because rich people are able to pay off congressmen and elect pet judges. I’m trying really hard to avoid buzz phrases like “white privelege,” because they shut down conversation rather than opening it… but you are making it very difficult!
@Pinky: “Would you give someone a lower grade because you hated them? ”
I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I have a student I dislike to any degree I work like hell to make sure I’m not letting my personal feelings affect my grading decisions.
@wr:
Too late, I already used “white privilege.” I loathe the phrase, but it becomes unavoidable when talking to these people. They are so stubbornly blind to the consequences of their own positions, so deeply clueless, it ends up being the only way to describe what I’m seeing. They just don’t get anything.
@michael reynolds:
You think that they’re telling the truth? I don’t. I think there’s a certain delight/glee/happiness in the privilege of being able to say poor people get screwed but that’s the law and we have to follow the law, all while pretending to be clueless as to how these laws come about.
@Modulo Myself:
I think that’s one of the splits within the GOP. You’ve got people who are too clueless to know what they’re doing, and you’ve got people who enjoy knowing they’ve hurt people.
BTW, I like: We are no more obliged to like toadies than we are their leaders and may well
stealborrow it.Some Republicans do not personally (at least in their personal lives) behave in a racist manner. However, they do support a political party that is objectively racist – which, by my standards makes 100.00 % all republicans racists.
Some republicans are personally aware that human activity affects climate. However, they all support a political party that denies AGW which makes them all anti-science by my standards. (The GOP does lots of other anti-science stuff as well).
Republicans are perhaps not all misogynists, but they support a party that takes its marching orders from Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. This support counts as misogyny to me, by all 100.00 % of Republicans.
I hate all Republicans, and proud to do so.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Perhaps the funniest thing I’ve read in months.
@michael reynolds:
How about your party? Since you enjoy lumping all of us in together, why don’t you defend Al Sharpton? Your whole race baiting argument should include him too, right?? His NAN is basically legalized extortion to Fortune 500 companies like Pepsi and now Sony. Does he not fit the definition of race baiter or does he get a pass because he is black?
@Gustopher:
Maybe in theory, but not in any practical sense from the viewpoint of the student at this school. All the student knows it that the teacher hates me and she hates my parents, and I and my parents have done nothing to harm anyone. The poor student may never ever have even voted.
The teacher crossed a line that a teacher should never cross. She hates her students, and that hatred is based on their being, in this case their being Republican. At other times it was their being black.
There has been so much hatred expressed in this thread that it is downright pathological. But it is in this case claimed to be justified. Isn’t it always.
@michael reynolds: Hate is an act of the emotion, but it’s also an act of the will. I have angry emotional flare-ups, just like anyone, but I don’t deliberately hate. I don’t hate anyone on this site. I may think you get ridiculous, and I may disagree with you, but I don’t hate you. I wouldn’t go out and buy a book with your name on it, but if I read one, I’d give it a fair shake. I think it’s pretty cool what you’ve done with your life.
It’s not because I think politics is a game, and it’s not because I don’t have any stake in the outcome. This stuff really concerns me. I suspect that you and I have very different personality types. My guess is that, to you, emotion means that you’re serious about something. To me, it’s the opposite. If I laugh at your comments on this thread, it’s because you look to me to be flapping your arms comically. I’m probably too dismissive of you because of that.
Of course, a professor or department head would never let their personal feelings impact their teaching. Like this ethics professor at Marquette University who told a student they could not bring up gay marriage in the required ethics class and should drop the class. Nor the university taking adverse action against a professor who blogged about the incident.
Way to promote an open discourse of ideas there Marquette. Universities used to welcome “enquiry by contest, by confrontation, by argument and disputation,” and put it to good use to dispel ideas and opinions that could not be supported by fact or reason. Instead, they now move to shut out ideas they fear. Perhaps they fear they cannot win a fair and equitable enquiry into the topic?
@michael reynolds:
I’m finding it hard to respond to this. Not because you’re right, but because you’re insane. An idea is something you think, a tactic something you do. Insofar as ideas can lead to tactics there is a point to be made about the gray area between them, but this gray area doesn’t negate the essential distinction. Catholics and Protestants fought wars over this distinction between “faith alone” and “faith and good works.”
Besides, you obfuscate the notion I was getting at. She hates the people who espouse the ideas and use the tactics that stymie and obstruct the progress she wants. When her side begins to use similar tactics, she won’t hate them because they’re “her people.” If her side even adopted ideas from the other side (like a mandate to buy private insurance), she won’t start hating them. Her hatred isn’t guided by ideas and gray-area’d tactics as you’ve put it, at least as far as she’s expressed.
@michael reynolds: Oh, nevermind, You abandoned that point.
@wr: Me too. I don’t know why we’re assuming this teacher would do otherwise.
@C. Clavin: “That would violate my own personal sense of ethics.
Perhaps the funniest thing I’ve read in months.”
But it’s actually true. What he’s threatening would actually require effort — thus violating the chief item on his list of ethics…
@MarkedMan: I have two friends on Facebook who went to the same high school. They’ve both since moved to different states, but remain in touch. Every election, they have the same civil bouts with each other over the issues, always ending in some form of the following:
“I guess I’ll just be negating your vote then this year.”
They remain very good friends. Isn’t that strange?
@JKB: For God’s sake, why don’t you just get that GED and stop obsessing over everyone who has more education than you?
@Will:
I despise Al Sharpton, and I think it’s appalling that MSNBC has him on the air at the same time he’s playing activist. It’s one of several reasons I have severely reduced my MSNBC time.
But the Democratic Party is not built on exploiting race hatred, it’s built on rejecting same. And we don’t pander to our worst elements.
This is really very simple. One party wants more people to vote, and one party wants fewer people to vote, especially if they are young or brown. There is no moral equivalency in a democracy between those who want more people to have a say in self-government, and those who want power increasingly in the hands of an elite.
@James Joyner:
I disagree with you on it being untenable or job-costing. For one, outside of the topics that might come up in a communications class (and I’ve never taken one so I wouldn’t know), she’d have to glean from student interactions that one was with one party or the other to really start to “hate” them.
Then again hatred tends to be reductive, and she might associate certain behaviors or attitudes with certain political ideologies, e.g. “a religious person is conservative.” But the ideal academic would abstain from that.
@michael reynolds:
@Will:
And will is flying a racist avatar…so he should know.
“a racist, sexist, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, rage and hate-fueled party, James.”
And yet you have no evidence of that. Some Republicans may hold these views, but certainly not all. And there is no Republican party document or platform that espouses these views. Rage? Who’s mad? Sure, we criticize Obama, but no more than you Democrats did Bush (I’m sure you’ll disagree, but does the word “Bushitler” come to mind?) We don’t hate you or any of the people you mention. Hate is wrong. But you hate us, don’t you? You would love to see us all rounded up and executed, right? Just admit it. I mean, it’s kind of natural for you Democrats. You people founded the KKK. Twice. Every single villain of the Civil Rights era (Connor, Maddox, Faubus, etc., etc.) was one of your fellow Democrats. Heck, did you ever object to the fact that your party kept a KKK Exalted Cyclops in office as president pro tem of the Senate (3rd in line to the presidency) until 2010? I doubt it. Hate is what you Demokkkrats do. It’s like it’s encoded in your DNA. You can’t help it. But don’t project your own problems on us Republicans.
@michael reynolds:
Well…in the hands of those they think are elite. Really they aren’t very bright; e.g. supply side economics, austerity in the face of recession, the $3T war in Iraq, science is a hoax, muslim socialism, torture works, creationism, etc.
@Tillman:
The tactic arises from the thought, from the intention. The idea: “Hey, let’s hate Jews,” is a necessary precondition to, “Let’s gas them all.” If you don’t fight the idea, you’re left fighting the action too late.
One Republican idea is that we should arrest and deport children who’ve lived in this country and gone to school here for almost all of their lives. That is an idea that contemplates an action.
Yes, in the hierarchy of evil action is worse than idea. But action (kill all Jews) comes from idea (I hate Jews.) So yes, it is entirely appropriate to hate people who preach and profit from hate.
There are people right now, today, millions of them, who believe that because my mother is Jewish, I deserve to die. That’s a fact. That’s reality. Now, is it okay for me to hate those people? Or must I sit here drawing meaningless distinctions between the person with the idea, and the idea itself?
Here’s the conversation you and James both envision:
Me: Hey, let’s have a beer.
Some Guy: I hate Jews. You’re a Jew. I hate you.
Me: Well, gosh, I hate that idea, but you seem like a swell guy. So, how about that beer?
@Rick Stevens:
Your rant shows that you either are:
a – ignorant of history
or b – are lying to make your point.
You choose.
Either answer renders your comment un-worthy of consideration.
@michael reynolds:
I’m glad that you said that about Sharpton. It’s almost impossible to criticize him without being a racist. I’m also not going to deny there are a number of wackos in my party who are racist and still have problems with gays. Still, I think you need to be a bit more optimistic about the average Republican. I have no issues with you bashing Perry, Cruz, Santorium, or any politician. I do though take slight offense when you characterize millions of people as racists because they Vote Republican. I also find it surprising that someone as educated and successful like yourself would see the world in such black and white terms.
@Rick Stevens:
Yes, it’s true that Democrats were the main exponents of racism. Right up until we switched sides and did the right thing. Which is when your party sold its soul to the devil.
But nice try. We love the old, “Hey, 50 years ago your party was racist” routine. It’s a perennial from people to effing dumb to realize the moral of the story. It’s a sort of big, protracted, “Duuuuuuuuh.”
@C. Clavin:
Still trying to shame me Cliffy….. Maybe if you were an actual American Indian, I would consider changing the logo. I told you that when the FTC takes action, I will too.. btw, how’s the job search going? Walmart is hiring holiday workers in CT
@Will:
I did not and do not characterize all Republicans as racist. I say that your power is built on racist votes, that your party deliberately panders to racists, and that therefore your party is doing an evil thing.
Here’s a 538 survey on racial attitudes by party. They compare white Republicans to white Democrats. White Republicans are pretty consistently more racist than white Dems. But of course that obscures the true party comparison, because unlike the all-white GOP, we have a large percentage of black and brown folks in our party. We are integrated party.
So, in the Democratic Party, even if we have white racists (and we do, 19% according to Nate) they are submerged within a party that takes the opposite position. In the GOP the 27% who answered questions in a way that indicated racial bias, have no such counterbalance. They aren’t shunted aside, they are celebrated and pandered to.
Bottom line is that the Democratic Party takes the position that more people should have easier access to the polls so that they can participate in government. The GOP actively works to keep black people, brown people and young people away from the polls and exclude them insofar as possible from participation.
The proof is in the action.
@Will:
See…here’s the thing.
Your avatar is an actual thing. We can all see it. We all know what it means. Thus we all know what you are.
Your fantasy about me not working is just that…something you make up in your tiny little mind in order to assuage your insecurities.
Fact v. Fiction.
Carry on bigot.
@C. Clavin:
Oooh, calling me a Bigot today for my Avatar. Seems like your the only one left who takes offense at it.. What else bothers on you on the Internet?
btw, I know you don’t work. Everyone knows that including your “friends” I would bet any amount of money that you have posted on this site this year more than anyone. I don’t even think the person in second place is even close. IF you actually had a Job, you wouldn’t be bothered by comments or be able to post all day.
No John425 had it right about you on another thread,
“Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 17:08
@Will: You’re right, Will. He is likely a grizzled, bitter old man who thinks life cheated him out of his just desserts. He probably lives in a dilapidated, one room apartment in a run down inner city neighborhood, hates all those around him and gets his jollies heaping insults on his betters. I’ll bet that he gets his kicks ffrm the White Power websites and spins their hatred out as a smoke screen to cover his own inadequacies. On another thread he made inquiries as to the length of my penis. Shoulda asked the moderator to block him then.”
@Will:
The Democratic party does not, collectively, dance to Al Sharpton as its piper.
This is very different from Tony Perkins, Rush Limbaugh, Ken Ham and Rafael Cruz setting the agenda Republicans with any serious national ambitions are obligated to adhere to. Al Sharpton’s rhetoric and language is not so extreme as Limbaugh’s, nor his positions as extreme as Perkins and Cruz either.
Your comparison is unconvincing.
@Will: Will, you look like the putz in a conversation with Cliffy. Think about that.
@michael reynolds:
I understand what you are staying but Politics is mostly about Fear and both sides do it quite well.
All you have to do is watch any campaign Ad weeks before an election. Most of these ads contain little truth and are meant to scare voters.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/controversial-ads-election-2014/story?id=26548196
As for voter suppression, I won’t deny there is a racial element in some areas. However, a number of us see this as a way for dems to increase their electorate and to prevent the GOP from ever winning a presidential election again. We say it prevents voter fraud and you say its used to suppress voting. We’re obviously not going to find common ground on this as I believe every person should have a photo ID. In the last few months, I travelled by AA, Amtrak, and went to the doctors office. I had to show voter ID in every place. I would think with Obamacare that more minorities would be going to the doctor and having to show a photo ID.
@Pinky:
OK, MR Pinky…. thanks for sharing..
@charon:
I don’t mean to convince you. If you want me to defend Russ Limbaugh, you should be prepared to defend Al Sharpton. al Sharpton actually has more influence than Russ Limbaugh. Al Sharpton has visited the White House over 60 times and has the presidents ear. I call that influence. btw, you really need to read and learn more about Sharpton if you don’t believe his rhetoric and language is extreme.
@Will:
A national ID has long been opposed by your party because 666 and the number of the beast, dontcha know. Also no doubt something to do with black helicopters and guns. So, you’d better go check with your crazies before you call for a national ID.
@Will:
You and John425 have never, ever, been right about anything.
@Rick Stevens: And the losers of the world have a new king.
@michael reynolds:
I didn’t say national ID, you did. You ignored my comment regarding the necessity of needing a photo ID for basic services. Why aren’t all these minorities getting photo ID to use Obamacare or to travel anywhere even by Greyhound?
i know its easy for you to change the subject and start in with the 666 mark of the beast crazy talk, but lets not get off topic.
@C. Clavin:
We’re not right about everything, but absolutely spot on about you Cliffy. Have you thought about telemarketing? They’ll hire anyone
@michael reynolds:
Mr. Reynolds:
Are you saying that the hatred for Republicans would not in the least impact a professor’s grading or a hiring person’s decision? I just don’t see how most folks who truly hate a group of people wouldn’t have that hate emotion be a factor.
Given that you believe “…It’s not only okay to hate Republicans at this point, it’s damned near unavoidable.”, and that Republicans are “racist, sexist, gay-bashing, immigrant-bashing, rage and hate-fueled party”, why shouldn’t Republicans, as vile as you believe they are, be denied admission to UofM and job opportunities?
@michael reynolds:
And you don’t see how that might lead to action others could consider going too far? You’re justifying your own hatred by saying your targets are acceptable. As Steven Taylor said in his thread, “If one values democracy, one has to find a way to deal with one’s political opponents.” Simply becoming a mirror image of them only disheartens people further. Sure you rally the faithful, but it doesn’t appeal you to others critical of your message.
I remember with fondness how Democrats used to attack the principle of pre-emptive war, and I remember with equal somberness how drone war became their shrug of acquittance. “Well, it’s not as bad, so it’s good!” Your position that hatred against haters is acceptable is just another wrinkle of this same slope.
I also disagree that the distinction is meaningless. The guy who thinks all Jews are evil, and the guy who thinks all Jews should be executed, differ in how much they can be persuaded. Hating them for un-enacted thoughts hardens their hearts against you. And if all you hate is people willing to kill you for such weak reasons as having a Jewish mother, what differs you from anyone else?
@Tillman:
not the Port huron Statement, but i couldn’t agree more.
@michael reynolds:
I hope in a moment of clarity that you can allow yourself to realize that is hysterical and crazy.
Over time, one would surmise large numbers of Black students and more than a few Muslims have studied under white teachers who hated them. Before them Catholics, Polish, Irish, Italians, Jews, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, etc.
Even if one accepts James argument that this woman hates in a way that impedes teaching and fair grading (which is not at all clear in the article), what makes this case special?
@Rick Stevens:
Typical RepubliKKKan nonsense.
@michael reynolds:
Can you point to any statement at all by a Republican politician expressing that view?
@Tillman:
I think it’s pretty simple–Republicans do not value democracy, equality, or justice. Some maybe think they do, but it’s like somebody who reads nothing but the Washington Post, self-help books, and Politico explaining how much they love the First Amendment. It’s meaningless.
There used to be a pretense of wanting equality or justice in Republicans. There used to be moderate Republicans who saw the country’s racial, imperial and economic flaws and differed with liberals and the New Left in how to chip away at these flaws. The moderate Republicans joined forces with people who used the cover of wanting equality to promote their own policies. These are conservatives. The moderate Republicans have since become liberals. The conservatives have been caught out in the open. They do want to end white supremacy, they are not troubled by an endless plutocracy, they do not want to share privileges with women and minorities, and they do not want to get rid of the reverence they believe is their due. At the same time, they have to pretend to share these goals.
In my opinion, it’s the lying that’s causing a great deal of hatred. Nobody likes a liar.
@JWJ:
And here we go with the Republican self-pity machine. Is there anyone more disadvantaged than white males who only control, let’s see, oh yeah: everything?
To be clear on this: I do not favor firing people for having divergent opinions. If I were a radical liberal I’d advance the argument that white male privilege is so pervasive that it must impact grading done by white male professors. That argument would be quite a bit more compelling than one positing that this professor will inevitably retaliate against Republicans.
Or, I could make the argument that since Republicans belong to a party that eschews science, no Republican should be allowed to teach science. That case could be made as well.
But I’m a free speech extremist. That’s why, as referenced above, I’m the only person in my field who defended Daniel Handler for what I thought was a careless blunder and not a deliberate racist joke. I defend everyone’s right to express an opinion, even really bad people like Nazis. “Congress shall make no law…” I would shut down the FCC’s censorship tomorrow and have always opposed the MPAA and Commonsense media’s efforts to apply a sort of “soft” censorship.
@Another Mike:
Sure:
There you go. The quote is about Bachmann, the legislation was passed on Republican votes. 221 Republicans voted for, and 3 Democrats.
It would specifically require ICE to continue deporting children to countries they’ve never known, where they may have no relatives, where they may not even speak the language.
@michael reynolds:
We prolonged slavery as long as we could. We instituted Jim Crow and prolonged it as long as we could. We fought you at Little Rock. We fought the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Then we wised up and joined the Republicans in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The moral is: Even after pulling against humanity for a century, a Democrat is eventually able to figure out what he is doing wrong and start pulling in the right direction, for humanity. Congratulations.
@JWJ:
At my last job, whenever I interviewed a candidate, during the last five minutes when we try to sell the company, I made sure to point out the company’s very good benefits for gays and lesbians (somewhere between mentioning the flex time and the generous maternity/paternity leave).
A number of people failed the interview because they couldn’t keep from saying bigoted things for five minutes (eye rolling is fine, pointing out that they won’t need that benefit is fine, asking why I thought they might need that benefit is fine (“I mention it to everyone, I don’t try to guess anything about a candidate”), using slurs is not) — it’s a nice filter. Other interviewers who knew I did this also started doing it.
Did anyone actually read her article?
She made the point that the Republican Party actually hated first, and stirred up hatred as a deliberate political strategy:
Isn’t all this just simply true? I could cite many more examples than that, including the “Southern strategy” , Reagan’s race-baiting, Lee Atwater’s racist dog whistles, and the smearing of liberals as being traitors for not supporting Bush’s war in Iraq.
Her conclusion:
Her argument was that hate begets hate. It’s certainly true in my case. I hate the Republican Party and what it stands for because the Republican Party , by its party platform against its actions, seems to hate me and people of my skin color and economic status (and lots of other disadvantaged groups, besides).
That said, I like individual Republicans(Some of my best friends, etc). But I hate the Republican Party ideology.
Even so, I would have little difficulty grading a Republicans’ paper correctly.(I would have no problem grading a Marxist’s paper, either, BTW). I can distinguish between Party and person. So no, James, I have no problem with Ms. Douglas’ position and disagree that it poses any threat to academic freedom.
@Tillman:
Their hearts are already hardened, Tillman. People who operate from ethnic hatred are not convinced by rational argument.
I don’t know your background, but you’ll have a very hard time finding a Jew or an African-American who does not understand that racists are impervious to reason.
Look, I’m not arguing for an end to discourse – obviously, here I am, discoursing. And I make my living writing, and some of that writing is implicitly political or philosophical, so I either care about a dialog on the issues or I’m doing a hell of a lot of work pretending to.
But saying, “I hate a given ideology or behavior,” is communication, it is discourse. When we say we hate child molesters, we are communicating a widespread societal disapproval that allows very little wiggle room for your aspiring molester. We are stigmatizing people we find dangerous. We’re saying, “Yeah, we don’t like shoplifters and we really don’t like drug dealers, but you people, you are on a whole different level. You we hate.”
I hate anti-Semites. I hate racists. I do. I think they are evil. I think they are the petri dish of greater evil. And I think I have a right to hate evil. In fact, I think I have an obligation to hate evil. I have children growing up in this world, both of whom are potential targets of various ethnic or gender hatreds.
I believe deliberately stoking racism is evil. I think the Republican party deliberately stokes racism and is, therefore, evil. I think they are playing with fire. I think they are doing great damage to this country and to the cause of freedom. No one knew that the Brown Shirts would give birth to the SS einsatzgruppen. No one knew Teddy Roosevelt’s casual racism would give rise to atrocities in the Philippines. I could go on with examples all day long. There is connecting tissue between Republican use of Willy Horton tropes and cops shooting unarmed black men and grand juries looking away.
@michael reynolds:
Sorry, I am not finding this language in HR 2217.
@michael reynolds: Progressives claim it is OK to hate Republicans because of their ideas (which progressives willfully misrepresent and caricaturize with abandon) but it’s immediately obvious how arbitrary, capricious, and selective their moral outrage really is. Do progressives apply that same “principle” to Muslims? Is it OK to hate Muslims for their murderous, toxic, misogynous, homophobic ideas…? Not just no, but Hell no! That would be bigotry! (Progressives even call it racism despite the fact that religion is not a race. That’s because racism is higher on their hierarchy of sacred, protected issues and it has more emotional zing for them.)
Progressives justify their hatred for Republicans claiming that Republicanism (do they mean conservatism?) is a choice, but what about the “choice” to be a Muslim? Progressives might reply that Muslims don’t really have a choice, so it doesn’t count. But that’s kinda the point, isn’t it…? Muslims will kill anyone who opts out of the religion of peace.
So, why all these warm fuzzies for Muslims, a chosen religion, but rabid hatred for Republicans, a chosen political party? Well, because for progressives Muslims are members of the ingroup, which came about as a simple-minded product of left wing partisanship. Republicans aren’t particularly fond of the way Muslims go about murdering people, especially American people. And progressive hatred for Republicans is much stronger than any disapproval they may feel over Muslims beheading journalists, the latter of which have mostly just been white males anyway. (Down with the Patriarchy!)
Anyway, as much as progressives love to pat themselves on the back for their “tolerance,” the simple fact is that nobody can coherently claim to “tolerate” their ingroup. That’s like saying gay men tolerate gay men or that best friends tolerate each other. The left doesn’t get any brownie points let alone any humanitarian awards for liking the members of their ingroup. It requires nothing of them — not the least little stretch of their rather minimal humanity. Everybody approves of their ingroup. It’s not even remarkable.
The people progressives openly refuse to tolerate — using the literal definition of the word — are Republicans. Republicans are the outgroup. Wonder of wonders, progressives hate the outgroup and love the ingroup. They even give exalted status to their hatred of the outgroup. This is no more morally evolved than the most primitive civilizations on earth. There’s nothing at all remarkable about approving of your ingroup and hating your outgroup. Even the most morally degenerate people on the planet can claim the same, which is why progressives are such bitter, scowling, toxic people.
@Another Mike:
Then you don’t understand legislation. What do you think they say, “Resolved: let’s round up children?” No, Mr. Obama wanted to use the budget function to stop deporting children who had become known as DREAMers, and the Republicans tried to stop him, in other words, to restart the deportation of children. The facts are not controversial here. We’ve been trying to protect these kids, the GOP’s been trying to keep us from doing so.
Sorry, I put “budget function” in the wrong place. Ignore.
Remember, “hate leads to suffering”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ukFAvYP3UU
@CNM:
Liberals/progressives hold the racism of Republicans in contempt YET AT THE SAME TIME they refuse to hold all Muslims accountable for the beheading of a journalist. What makes these crazy bitter people tick?
@CNM:
I hate Muslims who are murderous, toxic, misogynous, homophobic in action. But that’s not all Muslims. I am on record with being OK with droning Muslim terrorists… because they are trying to kill Americans. But I’m not about hating the average Muslim, going about his business in America or elsewhere.
You do understand that most of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world don’t do that, right? You understand that jihadists kill more Muslims than anyone else, right? Those 130 kids the Pakistani jihadists slaughtered? Mostly Muslim.
That sound you’re hearing? The world’s tiniest violin-which I can’t hear over “pinko”, “comsymp”, “nattering nabob” , “un-american” , “traitor,””unpatriotic,””welfare queen”, “strapping young bucks eating T-bone steaks”, “feminazis,” “sluts,” “moochers”, “47 per cent” , “losers,” “drug pushers with ankles the size of cantaloupes”, etc, etc, etc.
We have a long way to go to catch up with the conservatives’ litany of hatred.
@michael reynolds: Boy, talk about an echo chamber. I’ve read the article and comments section responses. It reminds me of a talk Evan Sayet gave at the Heritage Foundation about why the Modern Liberal thinks the way they do. Indeed, it is an incredible puzzlement to those of us on the Right to figure out why Democrats/Liberals/Leftists almost invariably chose evil over good, policies that produce misery over prosperity, and are truly the most Intolerant people I have ever met. I’ve always admired greats like Milton Friedman for the easy and non-aggressive manner in which he would swat down foolhardy Leftists with their egalitarian utopian ideas that have never worked for any period of time historically and are completely based on emotion and the worst sort of ad hominem attacks possible.
The modern liberal like the ones commenting here HAVE to characterize their intellectual opponents as evil in order to nullify having to have a rational debate on issues on the merits. This is why you see Liberals demonizing anyone who opposes their viewpoints and using arguments that a first year law school student is taught to recognize and dismiss. Charles Krauthammer jokes about how Pres. Obama loves to set up straw man arguments, throwing up one lie or mischaracterization or another in order to belittle opponents. Straw men, red herrings, ad hominen attacks, misdirection, yelling over the other person when they have the facts on their side. But it’s impossible to have an intelligent discussion with a liberal because of EXACTLY what this professor did. By calling everyone who disagrees with her some vitriolic epithet, she in essence calls us the equivalent of Hitler. Now who’s gonna discuss the disaster of liberal views on the federal minimum wage laws with Hitler? Now, one can argue perhaps that you can openly hate someone, i.e. Jews, Blacks, or Republicans without discriminating against them. Yet teachers hold a position of power over students. What is frightening now is that we are entering a time when these despicable teachers feel comfortable enough to openly spout their blind ideology instead of wisely holding their judgments in order to allow for the free expression of thought in their classrooms. Any liberal who believes political dialogue in this professor’s classroom is now possible is simply delusional. Yet reading the comments section, delusional and intolerant is the word of the day.
@Modulo Myself: Somehow progressives can claim that not all Muslims are responsible for beheading a journalist but they can’t bring themselves to admit that not all Republicans are racists. But then, Muslims are the ingroup and Republicans are the outgroup. Racist Democrats are also the ingroup. Their racism is excused.
Neither can progressives bring themselves to admit that it is left authoritarian policies that Republicans detest, not people of different races. But such an admission might mitigate progressive hatred, and progressives have exalted hatred as a moral virtue, so they can’t have that….
Demonization serves a few purposes. It leads to rigidity of thinking, which aids in preserving political unity. If progressives all agree that they hate Republicans and that Republicans are evil then they can excuse themselves with engaging in any discourse with the “enemy” — which then serves to prevent any defections from the party.
All this reflects a lack of moral development.
@Richard Goldberg:
That’s some projection, mister. Maybe you might want to listen to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, or Mark Levin before you accuse liberals of “Straw men, red herrings, ad hominen attacks, misdirection, yelling over the other person when they have the facts on their side.”
@stonetools: You misunderstand conservatives. Conservatives think progressives are stupid. Which is a different thing from progressives, who think conservatives are evil. The hatred is yours. And you exalt it as a virtue.
Having been all over this thread I don’t want to look as if I’m abandoning ship or ignoring people, but I just got my revision letters for a 275 page and a 590 page manuscript (an unfortunate accident of timing) with both due by mid-January, so I have to go off and do paying work for a while. Carry on.
Why would I get down points for stating the very thing that progressives are claiming — that they hate Republicans and that it is a moral virtue to hate Republicans…?
Is it because I pointed out that conservatives think progressives are stupid…? Is that a surprise…? Perhaps I should have given you all a trigger warning.
@CNM:
Well, thank you for not generalizing.
Man, it’s always projection with you folks.
Also too you might want to review the many racist images at these Tea Party rallies. Viewing those, I’m having trouble with this claim:
@gVOR08: “The last Republican president did huge damage to this country and to the world. He tried to privatize SS before a huge market crash. He pushed through an unpaid for Medicare Part D by flat out lying about the costs. He cut taxes leaving a large deficit in good economic times, which partially tied the hands of his successor in dealing with said crash. He started two large foreign wars, the second for no good reason whatsoever, and totally mismanaged both, resulting in the deaths of 4,000 US troops and a hundred thousand or more natives of the countries we invaded. He blew up the deficit by not raising taxes for his wars, asking people to go shopping instead. He failed to prevent the biggest financial crash in 80 years. ”
This is the usual blanket tripe liberals spit out which becomes repeated over and over again until it’s cited as truth. Of course, as a liberal, spouting out these mischaracterizations and convenient omissions are what passes for liberal thought. Now, a conservative could easily run through much of the commentary and dissect each one for their mistakes, omissions, red herrings, etc., but what is the point. Now, the last Republican President did some good things and he did some bad things. The problem with talking to liberals about any topic is that they really don’t care what facts you have to refute what they say. Like a drunk fighter in the ring they just flail about blindly and would not even acknowledge or affirm one opposing salient fact. To do so would almost certainly come with a caveat involving either a diminishing of said fact or linking it to an even earlier evil Republican.
I’ll leave you with a few examples and then let you go back to loving the smell of your own odors in your echo chamber. First, the idea of converting social security accounts to personal accounts (so I don’t have to pay for my grandfather and my child doesn’t have to pay for me) has been a discussion for decades and one that such Democrats as Senator D. P. Moynihan espoused. This is, of course, because the system is broken. A regressive payroll tax linked to some pitiful, inadequate welfare payments is a better definition of Social Security. There are plenty of ideas to convert from a corrupt system that we have to personal accounts. Who said that retirement accounts are to be fully vested in risky stocks? Have you not heard of municipal or corporate bonds? Low-risk mutual funds? I know, I know… capitalism sucks.
Second, I still don’t understand how come liberals can’t get the idea of the Laffer Curve. That cutting both income and corporate taxes creates a larger inflow into public treasuries than raising taxes. It stimulates economic growth. This is a commonly known economic fact, one which President JFK used to stimulate the American economy and one which Ronald Reagan used to great effect in the 1980’s. At one point, the American economy under Reagan was producing 500,00-700,00 jobs A MONTH. I know, I know…Reagan=Republican=Evil. Just note that both political parties spend money they do not have.
As far as the housing crash, well…. that’s a whole other discussion about whether the federal government constitutionally should be involved in housing policies in the first place. But I’m a Republican…therefore, you hate me. I’m Hitler….which is ironic of course, given my last name. A liberal’s mind is poisoned; that’s why all of their policies involve the use of force and coercion. Good luck with that.
It’s amazing that we still hear this discredited snake oil about how tax cuts supposedly pay for themselves. Even Greenspan has admitted that this is wrong. Link.
@stonetools: Truthfully, most of the time the gentlemen you are talking about are factually correcting all of those mainstream media mischaracterizations you are describing. Now Mark Levin is a brilliant constitutional attorney. He could shred your arguments calmly and rationally in a few minutes. He only shouts down liberal callers cause they’re frankly so annoying with their fanciful dreams of utopia on Earth managed by wonderful angels managing our every need…provided the angels were Liberals, of course. lol
@C. Clavin: C’mon, Cliffie–It’s almost 3PM here on the West Coast. Isn’t that around the time you should be getting your kicks from watching the little girls get off the school bus?
Richard Goldberg:
Did you know that he was a socialist? He advocated a guaranteed minimum income.
You mean like the dream that everyone could depend on a guaranteed minimum income?
Will:
To prove this false I just need to point out that Rush was described by Saint Ronnie himself as “the Number One voice for conservatism.”
James:
I understand your impulse to treat her as someone unimportant who has nothing to do with you. Coulter famously said this:
Subsequent to that she was repeatedly invited to CPAC. At CPAC, she shared a platform with Romney, who had this to say about her (link):
I’m pretty sure you voted for him anyway. You’ve been lying down with dogs, and the rest of us can see the fleas on you, even if you can’t.
Well, this went downhill rather quickly …
Keeping up the argument, it’s s*** like this that makes people think today’s Republicans are such douchebags:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/17/missouri-abortion-bill_n_6342282.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
@CNM:
This, from a group of folk who believe Earth is 6,000 years old; Methuselah lived to be over 900 years old; that a man was swallowed by a large fish, stewed in those digestive juices for three days and nights, and lived to tell about it; and that a young woman miraculously became pregnant without intercourse. Yeah, Libruhls is stoopid.
@Richard Goldberg:
I welcome his appearance at OTB. We’ll see how good he is when he can’t turn off the microphone on people who contradict him.
Oh, so not only liberals shout down folks, eh? You might also look into Rush Limbaugh, who has been an open sewer of hate speech for thirty years, and Bill O’Reilly, who shouts down people on TV , so there’s no reason for doubt.
You’re mixing us up with conservatives , who believe that free markets can never fail-until they do -and who believe that big businessmen are angels-until they prove they’re not.
@John425:
Nasty little troll, aren’t you?
@Another Mike:
Seriously? We’re have you been for the last couple months?
@jukeboxgrad:
What politician has ever gone and apologized to Sharpton?
Republicans are constantly doing so with Limbaugh.
The interesting thing about this thread is that when it comes to actual hate speech , liberals can point to a whole rogues’ gallery of conservatives who spew hate speech every day( Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Levin, Savage-the list goes on). We can also point to specific racist and hateful images like these. We can bring up the birther movement and the references to Obama as the half-breed, the Kenyan, the Muslim, and the n!gg3r in the White House who thinks he’s king.
The conservatives can only bring up Al Sharpton. Now many years ago Al Sharpton really was a demagogue and rabble-rouser. But lately? Not so much. I’ve watched his program “Politics Nation” and he is rather tame-maybe slightly to the left of Rachel Maddow. I’ve heard more inflammatory talk from other MSNBC hosts.
So when it comes to actual hate talk, conservatives in the public sphere do far more than liberals. And we don’t even get to the internet, where things are much worse.
My problem with this discussion is the word “hate”. Hate is an emotion.
I never hated Bush. He was the worst President ever. He fvcked up economically, culturally, and in foreign policy. I mean…Iraq…seriously? 4000 troops gave their lives for nothing. Torture. $3T wasted. But it was never emotional. It was a rational judgement of his abject failure and the damage he (they) wrought. A 9% contraction of GDP in a single quarter. 9/11 and a total lack of accountability.
Republicans continue to be a problem for this nation. They have sabotaged the recovery. They want people to be less free. They are…by and large…racists. Marriage equality, immigration, economics, pot, the environment, a woman’s freedom of choice, common sense gun regulation, health care reform…they are on the wrong side of history on everything. These are rational judgements…not emotional.
Big picture…Republicans are no longer Conservative. Reagan wouldn’t recognize today’s Republican Party. Conservatism has so much to offer society. Republicans have abandoned anything positive or constructive about Conservatism in an empty quest for victory at the polls…and for what? To protect the profits of a few? To impose their ideology on others?
Conservatism would never embrace the radical economic theories that Republicans have.
But again these are rational judgements based on clear evidence.
It’s not hate.
@Richard Goldberg:
I have actually had the experience of trying to discuss issues like anthropogenic global warming and evolution with conservatives. I would have precisely the same success discussing such issues with the wall or the ocean. I cannot imagine having any greater success discussing racism with people who get outraged and indignant and stage hissy fits at any suggestion they might hold such views.
You have been watching very different TV than what I have experienced.
@Will: I know poor people and they WISH they had the cash to travel via greyhound…
@Richard Goldberg: Did you major in self-pity, or is it just a hobby?
@Richard Goldberg: “Second, I still don’t understand how come liberals can’t get the idea of the Laffer Curve”
We get it. And we get that it’s a complete fraud. And you know how we know this? Because it’s been proven time and time and time again not to work. But Republicans who are either too stupid to look at reality or believe other people are keep trying to use this as an excuse to slash taxes on the rich.
Look, you can whine all you want that everyone who knows more than you is stupid, but it’s about as effective as a toad screaming that Jennifer Lawrence is ugly.
Oh…and creationism.
Republucans want to reach creationism is science classes. That’s a scourge on education. Being against that us not hate…it’s evidence-based logic.
@stonetools: “I’ve watched his program “Politics Nation” and he is rather tame-maybe slightly to the left of Rachel Maddow. I’ve heard more inflammatory talk from other MSNBC hosts.”
As a TV personality, Sharpton is much worse than inflammatory — he’s BORING.
@Richard Goldberg:
It’s cited as truth because it’s true. See how that works.
@dennis: Cliff Clavin has the second most vilest tongue on this blog. He spews filth, lies and smears. He is a clone of Mike Reynolds. The only way to deal with those two fascists is to hurl back the same crap they throw out.
@jukeboxgrad: Al Sharpton sits in conferences with President Obama and apparently offers advice to him. That’s influence; or Sharpton is trying to get relief from the thousands he owes the IRS. Which scenario do you think it is?
I bet Rush would never do anything like that.
@Richard Goldberg:
You’re a liar and a fool – Flat out.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter
Look at Kansas, which has enacted every GOP Tax policy position, and are now resorting to OBAMACARE to help them out of the very deep hole the GOP has put them in.
http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article4606201.html
GOP economic policies create problems. Clinton had the clean up the Reagan/Bush economy, and Obama had to clean up the Bush II economy. I know too many Republicans don’t like facts, but you can’t change them to suit your liking.
@Richard Goldberg: The Laffer curve? One word response. Kansas.
@charon: It’s always amusing to me when Liberals can ignore, like, THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM AND FREE MARKETS AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT which has been far more responsible for lifting the wretched of the Earth than any other system of finance and governance, and the best you can do is come up with Kansas? Really? So they effectively cut taxes starting in budget year 2013 and in 2014 have a shortfall. Oh the humanity! Letting people keep more of the money they make MUST be the cause of the budget shortfall! Really? I thought there were some serious liberal thinkers here.
A few simple points because I find I must talk simply to my liberal friends. First, as with all changes in an economic system, the effects take TIME. You are fair to say Gov. Brownback was wrong to say cutting marginal tax rates would create a huge influx of income the very next day. As Forbes has said, he oversold an immediate panacea. There are other variables in any dynamic system that can speed up or slow down results. Investment and attraction of entrepreneurs takes time; we have no need to look to Kansas. Look to the hundreds of countries, states and municipalities in the world where people are free to keep the fruits of their labor and you see greater prosperity and higher standards of living. Everyone on this thread is the beneficiary of the fruits of the free market system of America. You guys sip your lattes and moan about how miserable your lives are under capitalism. Try living in the Soviet Union. Look at the wonderful experiment Venezuela has become.
Oh, Milton Friedman was most certainly not a socialist and he spent most of his professional life blasting away at the minimum wage. He, like most Conservatives, are not adverse to helping people. We just absolutely disagree with the totalitarian ways you go about doing it. As he liked to say about liberals, ” the only way you can do good is by taking other people’s money. The two flaws with that; first, liberals have to take the money by force. At the heart of the liberal is a totalitarian statist. Second, liberals will NEVER understand that they will NEVER spend other people’s money as well as people spend their own money.”
There is no perfect system. Yet there are rational reasons why most Conservatives follow the policies they do. What a wonderful thing it is to be in the circle of rational Conservatives. In here you see neo-conservatives debate libertarians, religious conservatives talk about the fabric of morality, amazing economic debates about differing ways to improve people’s lives. I look across at Democrats and this is what I see; ignorant, intolerant, close-minded children who are simply unable to even entertain differing thoughts than their own. If one doesn’t preach the Liberal orthodoxy, you are cast out, like a Joe Lieberman. Liberals are a circular Polish firing squad; feminists, race-hustlers, LGBT’s, Muslims….all trying to climb to the top of the “Victim” totem pole.Just look at Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell yelling at each other about who knows more about racism or lesbianism…You all need to take a deep breath, and sit down with a knowledgeable conservative who doesn’t threaten you, keep all that anger bottled up, and just listen.
@Richard Goldberg:
When has slashing zither Public Sector ever done what you say ?
@jukeboxgrad: Well, for all of Limbaugh’s blather, he is fairly bright. You cannot sit there with a straight face and tell us Al Sharpton is, well…sharp. He’s as dumb as a bag of hammers.
@C. Clavin: And Dumbocrats still believe in the flat earth theory. They’ve drawn a straight line from medievalism to “progressivism”. Progressivism being a synonym for economic slavery.
Correct. It’s arithmetic. If we wanted to completely eliminate the deficit and the debt we could, just by raising taxes on the top 1%. 100% of the current deficit would be eliminated if the top 1% resumed paying the effective tax rate they used to pay in the period 1942-1981. Link.
The Reagan tax cuts for the rich are what’s unsustainable, and that problem will eventually be addressed.
How much longer do we have to listen? I started kindergarten in 1980. My sons will start next fall. I assume you don’t live in Kansas so our governor’s little experiment is an academic exercise. I hate Republicans because their actions actually impact my life. Every day. But please, tell me more about the Laffer Curve.
I will also point out it took a few years for Reagan’s cuts to start affecting the economy, but once it did, we saw an expansion of the economy unprecedented in modern history. When was the last month Obama’s economic model produced 600,000 jobs?
Reagan tripled the debt, which is a good way to boost the economy. Reagan the military Keynesian proved that government stimulus works. Too bad he sent the bill to our kids.
@KansasMom: sorry Kansas mom. You don’t just undo failing systems overnight. Liberals have been destroying cities and states for decades. You are right though. Did Gov. Brownback push for resetting collective bargaining agreements and public union wages? Because without those reforms, Kansas will turn around, but much more slowly. Are you a government worker, Kansasmom? What did you do with the increased money you received now that you got to keep more of your money? You do realize when that happens, people begin to invest and that ultimately stimulates the economy, right? Now you have a lot of other factors. You’re from Kansas. You probably know what some of the other factors are. But time to invest and grow is extremely important. America followed a low tax model up to the Progressive Era and saw a massive advance in the quality of life of the average person. It’s working in other states like Wisconsin and in other countries like some of the Eastern European countries.
I think another factor is energy development. Kansas may be at a disadvantage that states like the Dakotas, Texas, and Pennsylvania have…namely oil and natural gas. I don’t frankly know what are the main economic incentives for businesses to come to Kansas. Not near the ocean, tornadoes…you really have to make it worth the while of investors and entrepreneurs to relocate and build and grow. I wish you luck and Happy Holidays.
@Richard Goldberg:
Reagan exploded Government and debt…that’s where the growth came from.
@Richard Goldberg:
What does that even mean?
Wisconsin is flailing just like Kansas and Minnesota and New Jersey.
Republican economic theory does not work and has never worked. It’s radical nonsense.
You’re nostalgic for 1890? Really? And that was when we “saw a massive advance in the quality of life of the average person?” The period prior to 1890?
By the way, by modern standards “a low tax model” is what we have had, in recent years. Link:
Reagan’s average: 18%.
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/12/18/why-liberals-really-really-hate-us/?singlepage=true
@Richard Goldberg: Yeah. My taxes went up. Paid $57 more in 2013 over 2012. That’s a tank of gas to us middle class folk. Also saw my daughter’s enrollment fees increase by $25. But no worries, I’m sure my property tax statement, due to arrive any day now, will make this seem like nothing. My employer doesn’t pay income tax anymore though. Yay.
Richard Goldberg:
The person you are citing is concerned about “hyperventilating hatred” that appears in blog comments. Maybe you could ask him what he thinks of this: link.
@Richard Goldberg:
Funny, taxes were quite high under President Eisenhower, a moderate Republican. Interestingly enough, the Eisenhower years are remembered almost universally as a golden age in America.
@Richard Goldberg:
Yea, Reagan grew government. Kinda helps with hiring numbers.
@John425:
Congratulations, you’ve moved into bithead country. How does it feel to have a famous ignoramus as a peer?
@Richard Goldberg:
Do you have access to a time machine? Its interesting how often conservatives speak of the Soviet Union in the present tense.
@Richard Goldberg:
I’m not sure what you are talking about. I’ve had a wonderful life under capitalism. I’ve got a nice home in the hills near San Francisco (and have a second home as well), we spend weekends in Mendocino, I get to a lot of Giants games and my stereo probably cost more than your car. Quite a few of the liberals here are doing better than me, BTW.
You might want to try posting something that makes some sort of sense.
@Richard Goldberg: Day job prevents more than cherry picking one point from your comment. Liberals, or more correctly the economists liberals trust, understand the Laffer curve quite well, and did so long before Laffer and his cocktail napkin entered the scene. The marginal rate at which revenue is maximized is something like 75%. Which is roughly the number JFK cut it to. Anything below that is actually contrary to “the Laffer curve”. That’s why JFK’s supply side tax cut worked and others, say Brownback’s, haven’t.
Reaganomics was a miracle only of you cherry pick the dates for your comparison. Looked at overall, the economy under Reagan did about average. (Which, FYI, puts him ahead of other Republican presidents and behind almost all Dem presidents.)
It may be unfair, but Republicans certainly make it look like they believe in Laffer as an article of faith, immune to evidence.
@gVOR08:
Well…also let’s remember that JFK died before his tax cuts went into effect. LBJ was a profligate spender and the national debt was 20% higher when he left office, 6 years later, than when he came in.
Reagan spent oodles of money….the real Reagan economic miracle was Paul Volker and really low oil prices…two things he had absolutely nothing to do with.
To be clear….I’m not arguing the 75% tax rate point. Just adding that spending helps a great deal as well.
I’m curious if Mr. Goldberg wishes to raise taxes to 65% or 75%…or cut our current effective top tax rate of 15% to minus 10%…where we would actually be giving money to the rich? The question these voodoo economic geniuses never are able to answer is: we have had historically low tax rates for over a decade; where is the growth that is supposed to create?
@C. Clavin:
The fact is that Jimmy Carter had more to do with Reagan’s economic miracle than Reagan did.
@gVOR08: The only people that progressives accept are their ingroup. They hate everyone else and call it a virtue. This isn’t any more morally evolved than the most morally primitive cultures on earth. But progressives, with their trademark lack of insight, feel it is elevated and superior.
It’s kinda like the social version of Dunning-Kruger effect. People who believe they are morally superior to others (progressives) are in actuality the least morally evolved.
Despite the high level of emotion that progressives are constantly operating in — as we see with their need for trigger warnings and safe zones lest any dissenting idea disturb their chi — they seem to have a low level of emotional intelligence. Their propensity for emotional reasoning has them functioning like pre-adolescents. An adolescent can be excused for emotionally claiming that someone who disagreed with them about something obviously hates them. But adult progressives have never grown out of this phase. They still proclaim with great assurity that any disagreement with their economic and social authoritarianism is evidence of hatred. And if a conservative were to disagree with a black person or a gay person or a woman…? Triple trigger warning required! Bring out the magic crystals and wave some sage around the room! The only explanation that their emotionally stunted brains can come up with is hatred. Because progressives reason with emotion. These are people who claim time and again that the only reason that Republicans despise the ACA is because Obama is black. Do they seriously believe that Republicans would embrace their authoritarian health care debacle if Joe Biden had been elected instead…?
This is one of the reasons that Republicans think progressives as stupid — in contrast to progressives thinking Republicans are evil.
@Richard Goldberg:
I’ve got to ask:
Why do Republicans prefer to portray themselves as hapless victims of liberalism?
CNM:
In 2007 Jim DeMint described Romneycare as “something that I think we should do for the whole country.” For some strange reason this system was not then seen as an “authoritarian health care debacle.” A few years later DeMint was one of the main leaders of the ‘defund Obamacare’ movement.
OK, so maybe this dishonest flipflop has nothing to do with race, and is just typically hypocritical GOP politics. A problem that is harder to dismiss is birtherism. Birtherism is racism, and roughly half the GOP are birthers. This many presidents prior to Obama released a birth certificate: zero (except that Reagan’s became public after he was no longer president).
And anyone still in doubt about the importance of racism in the GOP should notice how easy it is to find an avalanche of vividly racist comments at an ‘establishment’ institution such as National Review. Link. I cited this link above.
It’s not surprising to see progressives claiming that their hatred is a moral virtue. THEIR hatred of course is special and justified — something you’d expect a pathological narcissist to say rather than people who have supposedly sanctified the principle of equality.
The thing is, all this hatred that progressives claim that Republicans are guilty of is really just a product of their own low level of emotional intelligence. Progressives operate at an adolescent level, thinking any disagreement with their viewpoints must be evidence of hatred. If you disagree with an economically authoritarian policy you must therefore hate the people the policy was about. If you disagree with a socially authoritarian policy you must also therefore hate the people the policy was about. Most progressives have not grown out of this adolescent level of emotional development. They are only capable of concluding that disagreement equates to hatred. This is certainly why the sweet professor hates Republicans so rabidly. She believes that how she emotionally functions is how other people emotionally function. And this is true for progressives generally.
But conservatives and libertarians are not emotionally stunted the way progressives are. Progressives are the people who clamor for trigger warnings and safe zones lest their chi ever be disturbed. Progressives are the people demanding that law schools not teach rape law lest it upset somebody. Progressives are the people who demand that dissenting speech be suppressed from college campuses lest their feels get hurt. Progressives are the people who make actual government policy based on emotion, not reason. Progressives are the people who believe their *good intentions* are how you judge public policy instead of results.
The product of all these out of control emotions — and we all know progressives don’t believe in self-discipline or personal responsibility — is an immature rabid hatred for anyone who might disagree with emotionally fragile progressives.
As for the foaming at the mouth professor, she absolutely must be removed from any faculty position at any teaching facility. She can surely get a job at Media Matters, where irrationality and demonization of others is a hiring prerequisite.
@CNM:
Wow…nice rip of psycho-quakery mumbo jumbo.
Meaningless. Blithely un-tethered from reality.
But nice rip.
@anjin-san: I don’t see you as my peer in anything. Why are you trying to pull yourself up? You are in a pool of idiots and you should feel right at home.
@Richard Goldberg: “You all need to take a deep breath, and sit down with a knowledgeable conservative ”
Well, if you ever meet one, please feel free to send him over. I’d be happy to meet one who actually knew anything about economics or history or science or art, and could do more than recite the standard right-wing mantras like doctrine.
You seem to think calling people stupid makes you look smart. And then you start whining about how terrible it is that lesbians are concerned with issues that concern them, instead of repeating mythology about how tax cuts increase cash flow to the government while insisting that reality is lying to you.
@CNM:
The reason I’m opposed to conservatives and libertarians is that their cockeyed economic and social policies don’t work. It’s the reason I’m opposed to young earth creationists pushing their “scientific” theories into schools. I know plenty of young earth creationists and many of them are nice, warm, giving people who are, if anything, better than I am. But the earth isn’t 6,000 years old and evolution is a thing, so no creation science in public schools.
In the same way, laisezz faire capitalism doesn’t work and has been shown not to work ( see “Depression, The Great”), the Laffer Curve has been proven wrong mathematically, and “trickle down economics” has been shown to be a fraudulent device for enriching the rich.
I could go on why conservatives and libertarians are wrong on gay rights, reproductive rights, and race relations, but I’m not trying to write an encyclopedia. In short, my opposition to conservatives is that they are wrong-a fault they can cure by admitting they’re wrong and following logic and the evidence.
@CNM:
LOL!
@al-Ameda: I don’t know about emotionally stunted, but liberals have higher rates of anxiety and depression, and conservatives tend to be happier. (Of course, you run into definitional problems here.)
@Pinky:
if that’s true – and for the moment I’ll accept your statement that liberals have higher rates of anxiety and depression – it’s primarily because conservatives are the primary cause of depression and anxiety in America today. I can see why conservatives would be happy about that – conservatives are happiest when outcomes are negative, it actualizes them.
@al-Ameda: Yeah-kay, in your world, liberals think about nothing but conservatives and it makes them sad, and conservatives think about nothing but liberals being sad and it makes them happy.
@Pinky:
Gonna need a link for that one, big fella.
http://therightscoop.com/marquette-university-professor-relieved-of-his-teaching-duties-over-gay-rights-debate/
So, lets be concrete here with an example. The teaching instructor argued that any opposition to gay “rights” would not be tolerated in class. When the tenured professor of 30+ years cautioned the instructor about stifling debate in a classroom, HE WAS SUSPENDED. Yet you have terrorists on the Left like Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill throwing ideological bombs instead of real ones and they’re just fine for educating kids. I’m curious what the supposed intelligent Left on this site make of this. Are you in favor of academic freedom? Doesn’t this suspension and crushing of dissent of a student who may disagree with a particular point of view EXACTLY CONFIRM what Joyner is cautioning about? Are you folks that obtuse? Does it not make you even the SLEIGHTEST bit uncomfortable? I’m taking a poll. I’m curious.
@stonetools: ” In the same way, laisezz faire capitalism doesn’t work and has been shown not to work ( see “Depression, The Great”), the Laffer Curve has been proven wrong mathematically, and “trickle down economics” has been shown to be a fraudulent device for enriching the rich.
I could go on why conservatives and libertarians are wrong on gay rights, reproductive rights, and race relations, but I’m not trying to write an encyclopedia. In short, my opposition to conservatives is that they are wrong-a fault they can cure by admitting they’re wrong and following logic and the evidence.”
First thing is that you should not paint with such a broad brush Conservatives. Unlike Liberals who march lockstep in ideology without any room for dissent (any Liberals here who believe in Civil Unions but not gay marriage?), the Conservative movement is alive with debate and dissent, point and counterpoint. You have libertarians, social conservative, neoconservatives, constitutionalists, “compassionate” conservatives…. there are literally dozens of differing ideologies that fall under the rubric of Conservatism. So, for example, I may agree that Creationism not be taught as a provable science in a science class. Yet I find no harm with a science teacher acknowledging that people of faith believe in something else, yet as it is based on faith, science cannot adequately prove it. There! Done! I just think people of faith want what most people want; the ability to raise their children without academia ridiculing them…especially because those same people of faith are PAYING THEIR SALARIES. A little respect and humility among academia would solve a lot of this. But I digress….
It’s truly ironic to listen to liberals debate the effectiveness of free market economics and free trade systems and how bad they are considering that we live in a country that owes it’s prosperity to those same economic systems. It’s annoying to have to keep repeating myself but you all should really watch every youtube video of Milton Friedman that you can. It’s simply to large a topic to debunk what all of you claim are facts.
Just a point though. The reason why the conservative media industry has exploded in the past 30 years has been the ease in which ordinary folk like myself are able to not just read the primary source information, but see how it is filtered, mischaracterized, distorted through the lens of the mainstream media. Perfect example; the current unemployment rate dropped below 6%. President Reagan was able to do the same. Therefore, Pres. Obama’s economy must be exploding like Reagan’s right? After all, Obama has EXPLODED government spending so all is well, right?
Now, this is where liberals either must think we evil conservatives are stupid, or not paying attention. Reagan reduced unemployment by adding 2-3 million jobs a year. Obama got to the same number……BY REDUCING THE LABOR WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION RATE TO ITS LOWEST LEVELS IN DECADES THUS REDUCING THE RATE. Here’s a hint to liberals; WE NOTICED. We notice every lie you state. We notice every omission. We notice every hypocrisy. We notice every mischaracterization. We are on to you. I have a graduate level degree with Honors and have educated myself for almost two decades on the deceptions. I am no rube that you can hoodwink. I swim in data and facts and have done so my whole adult life. We sneer at your pitiful efforts to cloak your tactics behind political correctness, “sensitivity” training, egalitarianism, George Lakoff word games, etc. We are here. We believe in the original intent of America. Limited federal government. Public servants, not private serfs feeding an ever bigger bloated corrupt government aristocracy. Private charities, local control, helping people through our own efforts, not acting like our tax money is just a charitable donation. We believe we shouldn’t be devoting half of our working lives or more to you guys to waste our money and crush individual spirit. Your minds are poisoned. Your brains are a pool full of tea that has dripped in this misinformation your whole lives. One cup of water will not make you see what you are doing or how you are so sadly wrong. How much water would it take for your minds to start diluting the dogma of liberal thinking? Sadly, most of you will never break out of it. If we could separate from you and let you try to create your Brave New World while we were left in peace to follow traditional America, I would do it in an instant. Thank you very much.
Richard Goldberg:
Are you? This is a statement from your “tenured professor of 30+ years.” Link:
The following words were written by Liberty University. Link:
So here are a few simple questions. Do you think Liberty [sic] University has “academic freedom?” And can you explain why Liberty University’s behavior is not an example of what your professor described as “a tactic typical among liberals?”
This is satire, right?
FY14 spending was 20.3% of GDP. Average for the 20 years of Reagan-Bush-Bush: 20.8%. Reagan’s lowest number: 20.5%. Reagan’s average: 21.6%. The 40-year average is 20.5%. Spending as a % of GDP is barely higher than FY08 (20.2%), and it’s also not much higher than what Bush spent in FY06 (19.4%) when the GOP controlled both Houses of Congress and the unemployment rate was two points lower than it is right now. It’s also much lower than Bush’s last fiscal year (spending in FY09 was 24.4%).
Why do you make claims that are so transparently false?
Hilarious.
@Richard Goldberg:
You spend a lot of time typing demonstrably false nonsense.
@Richard Goldberg:
So in the course of your advanced studies you learned to argue in all caps and ignore the use of paragraphs?
No one is impressed by your regurgitation of warmed over right wing boilerplate.
@anjin-san:
Well…I imagine he is.
@Richard Goldberg:
We’ve had historically low taxes for over a decade. When does the astronomic growth you promise finally appear?
@Richard Goldberg:
What does SLEIGHTEST refer to? Does this have something to do with Santa getting ready for Christmas deliveries? Are Donner, Comet, and Blitzen conducting the test?
@Richard Goldberg: I realize you love the sound of your own metaphorical voice, but really it would be much faster just to type “There is no right wing lie I will not only believe but parrot like it’s gospel.”
@jukeboxgrad: Yeah, but that’s not really fair, is it? Here’s the data in series, from the federal budget tables.
1979 19.6
1980 21.1
1981 21.6
1982 22.5
1983 22.8
1984 21.5
1985 22.2
1986 21.8
1987 21.0
1988 20.6
1989 20.5
1990 21.2
1991 21.7
1992 21.5
1993 20.7
1994 20.3
1995 20.0
1996 19.6
1997 18.9
1998 18.5
1999 17.9
2000 17.6
2001 17.6
2002 18.5
2003 19.1
2004 19.0
2005 19.2
2006 19.4
2007 19.0
2008 20.2
2009 24.4
2010 23.4
2011 23.4
2012 22.0
2013 20.8
2014 estimate 21.1
One could almost think you’d cherry-picked the years you referenced to make the recent years seem lower.
@Richard Goldberg: “A little respect and humility among academia would solve a lot of this. ”
As an academic, what I have to say to you — with all respect and humilty — is this:
Kiss my ass.
My salary is not paid by Bible-toting cretins who are fine with me teaching as long as I teach all the stupid things they believe in and nothing that makes them feel icky in their pants… which is essentially everything that has happened since 1860. My salary is paid by my students — although my program is part of the University of California system, it is not only self-suppporting, it makes a profit which we give back to the state — and my sole obligation is to teach them honestly and help them to achieve their potential.
You want go get into my classroom? Great, you send in your writing sample and, if you’re judged to be a good enough writer for us (hint: Lose the ALL CAPS) you can send us $40,000, and then you have a right to judge what goes on in my class.
Until then you have as much right to weigh in on my class as I do your family or whatever job you might hold.
Pinky:
You are citing an old estimate even though the actual number (20.3%) is available.
Tell me which of the years I referenced you consider “cherry-picked,” and explain why. And tell me if you agree with the original claim that “Obama has EXPLODED government spending.”
: A few points and then I’m leaving the echo chamber. First, my question about how much spending Obama has done compared to others is a question of real dollars. When we pay out on interest on the 18 trillion dollar debt, it doesn’t matter what the percentage of GDP is. I believe during the Reagan administration in order to recover from the recession, his administration added a little over 2 and a half trillion real dollars to the deficit. For that, we saw across the board economic recovery in lower interest rates, true unemployment, lower inflation, and economic development that is credited for spanning prosperity across two decades. Not to mention the saving of over a billion lives from the Soviet Union. What have we gotten from the Obama administration who has borrowed more money than any other President in history?Please. Spare me your cherry picked or misleading data. The American economy recovered slowly, but it has been nothing like any other recovery and the average person doesn’t feel it at all. But at least you guys can sit down now and smoke some Cuban cigars with Bill and celebrate being Masters of the Universe! (I’d keep your kids away from Bill and cigars, though). Sorry about the caps and the spelling error.
@wr: Thanks for proving my point. Try to clean the spittle off your chin before your next class, though! Man, I can’t tell you how much fun it is to enter the echo chamber of liberal thought. We can see where your ideas have gotten mankind. The Soviet Union, North Korea, Venezuela, the bankrupt Western European countries, Detroit, New Orleans, every major inner city in America, stagnation Japan… meanwhile, our competitors like China and India adopt low tax, free markets and are prospering (albeit without the political freedoms in many places). You guys have been responsible for more death and misery than any other system in human history. Keep up the good work! Thanks for letting me enter the zoo!
@Richard Goldberg:
Well, we did not fall into the depression after Bush took us to the brink. The stock market is fully recovered. The housing market has recovered. People who depend on IRAs and 401Ks for retirement can actually retire. The banking system did not collapse.
I could go on, but I think you are happier with your fantasies about Galt’s Gulch. Run along skippy…
@Richard Goldberg:
Leaving aside the contentless bits for the moment. Re: the Laffer Curve, Republicans seem to think it only has one side and that any lowering of taxes increases incomes. The real idea is that there is an optimum level of taxation that maximizes revenues. When the top marginal rates were in the 75% to 90% range (from Eisenhower through JFK) a real argument could be made that we were on the wrong side of that (dubious) curve. When the top marginal rate is in the mid 30s arguing the Laffer curve to lower rates is either ignorant or dishonest. I’m assuming ignorant at the moment. See, liberals can think conservatives are ignorant rather than hateful 😉
@Richard Goldberg:
Does the hypocrisy of your argument bother you in the slightest or do you not recognize you are making the mirror image of the argument you are calling morally bankrupt?
Richard Goldberg:
It would be good if you were using “real dollars,” but you’re not.
People who think ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’ are synonyms should be discussing neither.
The number you’re looking for is $1.9T, but “real dollars” is the wrong term. The term “real dollars” actually means something, and what it means is quite different from what you think it means. “Real dollars” means ‘adjusted for inflation.’ You are using dollars that are not adjusted for inflation, that is, ‘nominal dollars.’
Learn something about the concept of inflation, and you will discover that the value of a dollar borrowed by Reagan is not the same as the value of a dollar borrowed by Obama.
So you used the term “deficit” incorrectly, and you also used the term “real dollars” incorrectly.
This claim is a lie even if you look at nominal dollars (which is wrong), and it’s an even bigger lie if you look at real dollars.
This is like saying that when you pay off a loan, it doesn’t matter what your income is. That’s nonsense. If your income has gone from 10x to 1000x, then an interest payment of x has become much less significant to you. And your claim is just as illogical if you look at income at the time the loan is created. A loan of x by a person with an income of 10x is a different animal than a loan of x by a person whose income is 1000x.
So you don’t understand the difference between “debt” and “deficit,” and you don’t grasp the concept of inflation, and you also don’t grasp why it’s important to evaluate government spending and borrowing in the context of GDP.
“Misleading data” is precisely what you’re giving us when you pretend there is no such thing as inflation.
Thanks for being such a vivid example of someone who speaks with great confidence about things you don’t comprehend.
@Richard Goldberg:
Ok, I can weigh in on this. I’ve READ, not watched, Milton Friedman. Friedman is not an advocate of pure laissez faire capitalism. He understood that such capitalism leads to panics and crashes and advocated regulating the economy by having the Federal reserve Bank control the money supply (“monetarism”). On the Laffer Curve, Friedman had this to say:
So maybe you should shut up about Milton Friedman agreeing with you on the magic of the Laffer Curve. Milton Friedman had a lot of ideas about economics -some good, some bad. His big idea-monetarism -has been shown to not work, at least in its original form. His suggestion that we do away with the FDA and have drug companies certify that they have properly tested their offerings is just passed over in silence now by most of his fans, as is his early opposition to the Civil Rights Act and to Medicare.
I can tell that you are used to posting on right wing sites, where no one challenges your ignorant offerings, but on this site we like to have people who actually read the sources they quote and also link to them. So why don’t you do some homework, Mr. Right Wing Hero, and get back to us with some more coherent contributions.
@Richard Goldberg:
Anyone who actually has any knowledge of economics knows that the 2008 financial crisis wasn’t just “any other recession” but was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression . (Of the many messaging mistakes the Obama Administration made was that it did not stress this enough).Here is Ben Bernanke, former Fed Reserve chief:
Paul Krugman and numerous liberal economists agreed, saying that the crisis was far worse than many conservatives thought, and saying that without an aggressive response recovery would be slow and fitful. Conservatives (yet again!) got that wrong, repeatedly predicting hyperinflation and urging little or no response Read “KrugTron the Invincible” for a discussion on how wrong right wingers were.
Who prevented a more aggressive response? Why, the Republicans , who opposed any and efforts to stimulate the economy and improve the recovery. So look to your friends the Republicans for why the recovery was so weak until now. Despite all this, Obama’s recovery has outperformed Saint Ronald’s:
@CNM: One of the more astonishing things I’ve noticed in my life is that Stupid people often believe they’re the smartest people in the room. I wonder if this is a corollary to the Dunnings-Kruger effect?
@Pharoah Narim: But don’t forget about the Dunning-Kruger Paradox. Your increasing confidence that the other guy suffers from the Dunning-Kruger Effect could mean that he does, or it could mean…
@wr: What baloney: Your salary is paid by the “Bible-toting” parents of your students. Along with “Bible-toting cretins”, as you call them, they are also known as TAXPAYERS. What genre of writing do you teach? Fantasy?
And…you should be kissing the asses of those parents who send their kids to your shitty classroom.
@Richard Goldberg:
Actually, you brought the conservative echo chamber to this site.
That said, please continue.
@John425:
Okay, I’ll play along:
What conservatives wanted as an economic policy response to the 2008-09 Great Recession was austerity and deep cutbacks, and the forced bankruptcy of GM, and collapse of more banks and financial institutions.
Therefore, as we know now, conservatism is analogous to Medieval Medicine, wherein a regimen of bloodletting and leeches is necessary to ‘cure’ us of whatever ails us.
@James Joyner: “While I think that characterization over-the-top, I wouldn’t argue that it’s out of bounds for a college professor to make it. But saying “I hate Republicans” makes it impossible for her to teach Republicans. We wouldn’t tolerate “I hate Muslims” or “I hate Orthodox Jews.””
When Ann Althouse, John Yoo, Alan Dershowitz and Glenn Reynolds are fired for the same reasons, then and only then will I support you.