“This total war, in which no one is allowed to be non-political and neighbors and clients become mere pressure points, is a dangerous development.”
When the personal becomes the political, by default the political is the dominant frame. At which point, you are playing completely in the Left’s sandbox.
So. Did Limbaugh’s apology change anything? Or has it merely emboldened those who will use any tools to silence us to step up the scapegoating, and demand even further loyalty pledges and movement purges?
Just asking. Because as you all know, I would have fought the very premise that the Left and it’s faux outrage over Limbaugh’s use of “slut” was anything more than an intentional attempt to take him out of context and use the resultant disingenuous narrative to silence powerful voices who stand in opposition to their political agenda of “fundamental transformation.” I would have loudly and clearly told them that we won’t be cowed by your dishonest and cynical rhetorical gamesmanship — and that we see right through you.
But then, I’m an outlier. And not a pussy.
I guess we’ll see how the right’s willingness to pile on against Limbaugh in order to avoid taking a (presumed) hit with “moderates and independents” works out for them in the long run. My guess is, they get precisely what they deserve: more of the same.
(thanks to geoffB)
This is a very different response than “I hope he fails.” Maybe it’s because Fluke is a chick, and guys are instinctively protective of women. Even women like her.
Not a good instinct in this case.
I have no doubt that the right will pile on. This is just 2012’s version of “I hope he fails.”
Whoa.
And it may just be me, but I think Obama’s call to the poor dear thing, was motivated by the fact that… damn, she spends a lot on fucking.
That would be why Bill Clinton’s been trying to get in touch with her.
Do married people get a deduction for contraception? Since, technically, we don’t need it?
What if I had a vasectomy? If I’m fucking around, I’m not going to knock up any professional students I meet in some bar during March Madness. I want a fucking discount. Literally.
And behold, the last time I was taken seriously — and right before the rightwing blogs started pretending I didn’t exist.
Interestingly, Mark Levin praised the column on his show that night. But since then, word has gotten to him that I’m a violent psychosexual predator who tries to destroy the honor of good men on our side with my lies and faux intellectualism. And cock.
It’s a thing.
What about really ugly people? Homos?
Oh. That might have been me with my “Fuck Sean Hannity” rant because, seriously, fuck that guy.
Incidentally, if I did, do you think I could get some free lube? From what I hear, tight asshole is a legitimate medical condition.
What I’m saying is that this “free stuff” thing is all about benefiting the “catcher” in the situation. I may get a little chafed, but I suppose that’s okay with Ms Wasserman-Schultz? What about a severe bend? Once I got a Lee Press-on Nail stuck in my ass. What then?
I DEMAND PARITY!
Rush is on now. He says that he tried to cancel his own ‘Two if By Tea’ sponsorship but it wasn’t possible. He just gave another apology ONLY for using the word slut and said that using that word made him shrill and hateful and idiotic like the Democrats.
Now he’s going after Obama and the mandated birth control provider issue directly without any comedy act.
Victory for the Left. We can’t use humor now to make a point. That’s reserved for Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, et al.
Credit goes to Kirsten Powers for calling bullshit on that, Jeff.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/03/james-wolcott-speaks.html
And a lot of contraceptive drugs cause weight gain. So not only do we get a nation of fupas, but we lose the right to eat a chalupa?
All because this chick doesn’t want to keep a condom in her purse with her Marlboro Lights?
I kept a condom in my wallet for fifteen years! You know who paid for it? My older brother, that’s who. Out of his own money!
And I didn’t get a choice, either. It was a Firestone p185-75r14. Gave me a nasty case of scoliosis (good winter traction, though, if I’m honest), but did I complain? Hell no!
And then there’s duct tape. There’s times when every guy needs a bit of duct tape to get his thing on. It should be covered. Chicks hardly ever use duct-tape.
I have a close personal friend who has to use duct tape every time or else he could end up severely lacerated. Some of these things bite. He spends maybe 2-3 grand on duct tape per year, more if he has to use some of that fancy colored stuff… and it’s not like that shit’s reusable. It’s not like, “here’s a roll LMC, see you in a month.” OH NO! Sometimes five feet will do, sometimes you may have to use the whole damn thing. Once, during the 4-H fair, I went through eleven rolls in a week. Did I hear anyone in the goat pavilion offering to spot me one? I DID NOT!
I think he’ll go back to using humor.
He’s just doing the humorless approach to tackle this. I suspect he’ll get used to slapping down people who try to bring up “slut” every time he makes a joke. He’s been through this crap before and it DOES wear thin after a while and I think after a couple of weeks there will be a backlash against his “critics”.
The left tends to wear out its self righteousness advantages pretty fast. Mainly because they use terms like slut more frequently and less carefully than the right does and then have to explain why that is. They gain some ground act like pricks and then the ground is lost again as their outrage act becomes too tiresome or self evidently false to encourage.
To put it bluntly they try anything and everything so often that their enthusiasm undoes their sincerity. Their own nastiness and arrogance and rudeness comes out and then they lose the momentum they tried to ride too far.
Rush will survive this and perhaps as soon as the next two weeks, some democrat(or democrats) will get over confident and try to ‘crowd surf’ in the wrong place at the wrong time, and in the process say something awful and get called on it and Hannity will find some courage, Levin will write a stump warmer, Klavan and Whittle will turn out something stinging, punchy, and well researched, Crowder will do a music video, Michelle Malkin will beat the drum, The Bigs will start releasing creepy stuff about the people who are making such a show of being outraged, and this will lead a public backlash and then democrats will get slowly the message that it’s time to drop it because it’s fucking boring now.
Or maybe I’m wrong and the world is different now and this was the golden BB. But the bell is loudest when just rung, and the taco that is left on the plate too long grows soggy and loses its crunch.
This is total war. They even pulled up this fat old fish. http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/03/james-wolcott-speaks.html
We seriously need to fight back against the Democrat War on Penis. I don’t think that bunch of pussies should be making laws about a part of the male anatomy that they have no knowledge of and don’t have.
All that Tocqueville would have been stronger if it hadn’t come at the end of an apology.
Now it looks like a crutch.
damnit
Penises are rape weapons.
Why are you so eager to arm rapists? Not Roman Polanski though. I meant ‘rape rape’ rapists. You now that sonograms accompanying abortions are rape right? Sure you can get up and walk out if you disagree unlike that girl that Roman Polanski drugged but that doesn’t matter because it is still rape. Penises should be locked away in penis jails. All thinking people know this. You must be liberated from your false consciousness! We must evolve beyond the patriarchal mistakes of nature by declaring them purely social constructs for the strong of mind to subdue and sweep away! Please donate to your local tax supported NPR station! Thank you!
Also I’m going to need my taco habit subsidized by the public.
Tacos are virtually unavailable to people who are surfing on the internet. There is no reason I should have to get up out of this chair and get tacos with my own money when a just society would see to my needs out of compassion and a sense of justice and in humble recompense for all the injustice that I’ve suffered from this unjust unequal class based society that I just now became aware of.
Tacos. Now! Pony up. This war on my belly must end.
Fluke wasn’t a fluke but the rot of this fishy bunch starts at the head.
“Victory for the Left. We can’t use humor now to make a point. That’s reserved for Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, et al.”
I don’t see it as a victory for the left, I thought it noble. I mean really, do we really want a world of Bill Mahers?
I think this is the bridge that needs to be maintained, that sometimes we do or say, without intention or with, regretful things better said another way.
The thing to remember though, is be specific in what you are apologizing for.
Rush basically apologized to his audience, for sinking to the lefts level and setting a bad example, as well as to Fluke for unnecessarily using personal slander to make his point.
You’ll notice he didn’t apologize for being a woman hater, and in fact has shown more respect to women, by quickly admitting he inaccurately characterized Fluke, than any lefty has shown for Palin.
Generosity of spirit is a virtue to anyone that loves individual liberty, and a civil standard we best not lose in the battle to beat back the Godless commies and their Alinsky tactics.
That’s cool and all but the left will just see it as weakness and flail at him harder until people get bored of hearing about it.
geoffb’s last link is the most ominious thing I’ve ever seen.
It’ll leave the left pleased and the right unmoved.
Wow. So Obama is Carter AND Nixon.
China will be so pleased.
The Hoya is coming,
troll op, troll op…
With respect.
“That’s cool and all but the left will just see it as weakness and flail at him harder until people get bored of hearing about it. “
Yep, Over this, or something else. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So…?
Would we call a man (or a woman) testifying before an astro-turfed “congressional committee” “hearing” about the need for free or subsidized booze a drunk? (or a promoter of drunkeness, if we’re interested in being “fair”).
Because if we would, I don’t see what’s wrong with calling Fluke a slut.
Even if slut’s rights activist might be more accurate.
With Clinton’s “daddy” issues.
I believe I called that back in ’08 or early ’09, though doubtless I wasn’t the only one.
Sent sternly worded letters to a couple of his sponsors I patronize (all of which I heard about originally on Rush’s show)- canceled my Carbonite subscription, won’t use Pro Flowers anymore, etc.
I probably would have canceled my Carbonite subscription alot earlier if I had known their President is a big fan of Move on and Soros funded liberal groups. It would be interesting to know how much business these companies lose and how much they gain from this alleged “outrage” at Limbaugh.
George Allen called to remind you that he’s still radioactive. Thanks.
“Because if we would, I don’t see what’s wrong with calling Fluke a slut.”
I called Fluke a slut myself, Rush felt he violated a personal standard in calling her one. I feel like Rush helped me remember we are the good guys for a reason.
That’s my point, the left will forever call us names, what is important is who we really are, and being true to ourselves.
There’s been debate in the past over whether using Alinsky tactics on the left is something we should do, and it looks like Rush is on the “no” side. I agree. Jeff has been showing us what they do, and the destructiveness of it. If we start doing it too, we may regain some advantage in the battle, but we’ll destroy the very thing we fight for.
I know all about the debate because I’m one of the one’s uncomfortable with going Alinskyite myself. I still don’t have an answer. Probably in general it’s better not to go there, but in this case, he went there, and I wish he would have stuck to his guns.
She herself may not be a slut, but she’s a “slut’s rights” activist.
Or slut, for short.
Canadiens screw?
Who knew?
Rush did stick to his guns. His own standards. He regretted “going there” himself, so how could he defend it to others?
Rush said, in essence, “I have to apologize so that I won’t be as loathsome as the Left.”
Which is not a bad ploy—or wouldn’t be, if public discourse hinged on anything like listening to what people mean instead of what you can make of what they said.
As I elaborated yesterday, Fluke in her testimony did not claim that anyone, much less herself, needed contraception so that they could have sex sex sex; rather, she focused (when she finally got around to focusing), on actual female reproductive system problems.
As intentionalists, we can’t read “I wanna be a slut and for you to pay for it” into her testimony and then accuse her of being a slut, because as far as we can tell, she was merely saying that if you don’t cover The Pill for birth control, it’s hard to get coverage for The Pill for non-contraceptive purposes (the truthfulness and validity of her argument aside).
Unless, of course, you just want to riff on the claim “Without insurance coverage, contraception can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school” in isolation, for comedic purposes, which is what Limbaugh did, except for the part about where he attributed sluttiness to Fluke herself instead of Georgetown co-eds as a whole.
Meh. I’m ambivalent. Rush did take the utterance out of context; I don’t know if his intention was to ignore the whole testimony for the sake of a joke or if he ignored the context with malice aforethought.
Can’t tell; won’t rule on it.
That’s my point, the left will forever call us names, what is important is who we really are, and being true to ourselves.
The Left operates under the assumption that their vitriol is justified because of how awful their target is.
Do we treat people according to who they are or according to who we are?
If we ask WWBreitbartD and WWJD, do we get two different answers?
Even if one is not willing to play by Alinsky’s rules, one should still loudly call them out when they are directed at an ally. I really hope Rush wastes no more time getting out in front of this, and spelling out exactly what his enemies are doing and why. Something punchy, like:
That’d be a good start, anyway.
mo war
We Are at War. Is the Media Scared to Really Cover It?
Squid says March 5, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Seconded.
Politics is hardball. If you’re going to “testify” as a Democrat operative in a press conference posing as a “subcommittee” to score political points, being called a slut as a form of mockery is a pretty slim price. I promise you, this bitch whoring for Obamneycare and an assault on the First Amendment has not only won praise from her peers, she has made a shrewd career move.
I thought the point was that she might not be a slut, she’s a whore, metaphorically, as she was trotted out in front of a faux committee (not Issa’s official committee- just the democratic steering comittee) to give testimony that they planned to spring on Congress at the last minute. Her qualifications to testify in front of Congress are that she has a few friends who may have been denied medically necessary birth control pills. Oh and plus, coincidentally, she’s a birth control advocate. In my profession, you don’t get to put on last minute witnesses and you certainly don’t put on witnesses who aren’t experts in the particular field. They pimped her out as “someone having knowledge”. So she’s a political whore. I thought Limbaugh’s mistake was the use of the word “slut” and his focus on how much sex she was having.
Well, the problem with that is that humor needs to be funny and, well…
“I will not take lessons on respect toward women from a gang of thugs who’ve spent years using the most vile words to describe Palin, Coulter, Malkin, Rice, and every other conservative woman who dares think outside the limits set by Planned Parenthood. Nor will I be lectured on civility by a mob who spent the last week publicly and loudly cheering Breitbart’s death and wishing that my own would soon follow.
This, plus
“Ordinarily I would apologize to Ms. Fluke, but you people have forfeited the right to outrage over anything anyone says about your side. You made this bed; you lie in it.”
“Ordinarily I would apologize to Ms. Fluke, but you people have forfeited the right to outrage over anything anyone says about your side. You made this bed; you lie in it.”
Seconded again.
she was [trolloped] out in front of a faux committee…
[…] Jeff Goldstein writes: So. Did Limbaugh’s apology change anything? Or has it merely emboldened those who will use any […]
[…] she didn’t put pressure on those advertisers to leave Limbaugh, who left him anyway. Jeff at Protein Wisdom asks the question, “Did Limbaugh’s apology change anything?” The short answer is […]
““Ordinarily I would apologize to Ms. Fluke, but you people have forfeited the right to outrage over anything anyone says about your side. You made this bed; you lie in it.””
Don’t like it. If we are to champion the individual, we must give individuality to “you people” as well, not use the collectivist categorization of “sides” to broad brush the individual, Ms Fluke.
We can’t change who we are(“Ordinarily I would apologize to Ms. Fluke”), and lower ourselves to the level of who we are fighting, without changing what we want to achieve.
I don’t want to “win” a crude and hateful society.
This is who they are. This is what they do.
We don’t want to be like them, and we shouldn’t do like they do.
We need to keep advancing intellectual arguments, not start trading insults with children.
Lee, I’m afraid you are still thinking that they can be shamed into doing the right thing. They can’t.
I would not apologize to Ms. Fluke. She is a slut or at least has portrayed herself as one on national television. Until she admits that she made it all up and then becomes just a liar, well she’ll remain a slut. Sluts have a short sell-by date, too. Who remembers the names of all of Kennedy’s tarts?
LBascom,
I don’t think it’s so much the idea that we’ll become like the strident left, rather, it’s allowing the left to define standards of civility they don’t hold themselves to.
One of Alinsky’s rules was “making the other side live up to their own standards.”
I will apologize to my fellow classical liberals/conservatives if they call me out.
I will never apologize to the left because A: It’s a useless exercise and B: An apology is always seen as weakness by the left and therefore opens up new lines of attack.*
Leigh, we’ve had our disagreements, but I’ve never called you nasty names. It would be childish, and would undermine my intellectual argument. Plus, it would be crass and mean spirited(I realize you think I am anyway, but you won’t find a comment where I called you a derogatory name).
It’s because of who I am, and how I regard myself(and wish to continue doing so), not because I think you deserve it or not. That is irrelevant.
There can be no victory without honor.
I think you’re a nice guy, Lee and I get where you are coming from.
My point is not about arguing between ourselves, but in letting the others define the rules of engagement.
“I will never apologize to the left because A: It’s a useless exercise and B: An apology is always seen as weakness by the left and therefore opens up new lines of attack”
Blake, an apology is useless if it’s done solely for the perception of others, and how it’s seen is less important than the reason for the apology. I hate that an apology has become just a cynical get out of jail free card.
Rush thought an apology was due because he thought it was a slander, uncharacteristic of his nature and standards, not because he was afraid of being labeled a misogynist. The left already slapped that label on him long ago. It was a matter of his honor, not the lefts sensibilities.
You may hate what Rush did, but he has to live with himself.
mo war
link
“I don’t think it’s so much the idea that we’ll become like the strident left, rather, it’s allowing the left to define standards of civility they don’t hold themselves to.”
See, I don’t agree with that. The standard of civility that Rush felt he crossed was his own, not the lefts. That the left exploits those standards while exempting themselves is pure Alinsky.
It doesn’t make the standards Rush has less valid.
Well, I could make the argument that Rush is merely calling himself out. ;)
That aside, fair point, LB.
Maybe Rush should have said, “I’ll apologize to Fluke for calling her a slut as soon as she apologizes to Georgetown for assaulting their religious liberty.”
There’s no reason a heartfelt apology can’t be followed by a wicked right cross and, “That’s for provoking me into being such an asshole in the first place.”
It’s my choice in a confrontation to behave badly or well, but it’s their choice to try to provoke me into behaving badly. It’s best for both if they discover the price for succeeding in their provocation is bigger than they were planning for.
From the Legal Insurrection comments, this article from Feb. 2000:
http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness/
No surprises to regular readers of this site, but still very topical. I thought it had been posted this past week until I noticed the date…
That Lind article, as it happens, restates Breitbart’s own theoretical kernel, as Breitbart put it in his interview with Peter Robinson, and in his book, evidently.
That was good stuff Bob M., thanks!
“Interestingly, Mark Levin praised the column on his show that night. But since then, word has gotten to him that I’m a violent psychosexual predator who tries to destroy the honor of good men on our side with my lies and faux intellectualism. And cock. ”
Have you had a direct conversation with the Markle Vin in order to clear this [lie] misunderstanding up? [I’m hoping.] And found a receptive ear? [I’m guessing.]
LBascom – in the transcript for that day (paraphasing) Rush said “I take it back, she isn’t a slut, she’s round heeled.” However all the focus was on “slut”.
While I understand where you are coming from I have to agree with the more articulate comments here regarding why Rush should have defended himself against this and why it is painfully obvious that the left and those right thinking on the right will keep hammering away until nothing we say means what we actually meant when we said it.
‘Round heeled’ means that you don’t spend much time standing on your feet. Y’know, you kneel a lot or are down on all fours or lying on your back.
It’s another way to say ” slut ” or at least “sees plenty of action”.