A Blast of Pure Intolerance
posted at 11:10 am on June 10, 2009 by Doctor Zero
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Our culture praises tolerance as the supreme virtue, but intolerance has its uses, too. For example, decent people should not tolerate a tired, bitter old late-night comedian making jokes about raping the 14-year-old daughter of a politician on national TV. The equivalent joke about raping Barack Obama’s daughters would not be tolerated. To let something like this slide is to concede that Sarah Palin and her daughter are less worthy of respect – less human – than Obama and his daughters. People do not forfeit their humanity because they hold political views that elite liberal culture disapproves of. There are only two things decent Americans need to hear from David Letterman now: his heartfelt apology to Willow Palin and her parents, followed by his resignation. Any guest on Letterman’s show who wishes to be respected as a gentleman or a lady should make this demand to his face, until he finally gets the message.
I’m also intolerant of celebrities casually tossing off ugly religious bigotry during fluff interviews. Asked how she would deal with the villain of her Transformers movies, Megan Fox said, “I’d barter with him, and say instead of the entire planet, can you just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America?” A comparable remark about the black or Hispanic “anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America” would not have been tolerated. A similar insult directed at the even more anti-gay Koran-beating Muslims in the Middle East, who are known to actually murder gays on a fairly regular basis, would have ended her career. To tolerate this kind of idiocy against certain racial groups and religions, but not others, is to concede that certain racial groups and religions are inherently inferior and worthy of contempt. Megan Fox owes her success to a much bigger star, whose coat-tails she rode to fame and fortune: Optimus Prime, who would never allow her thoughtless insults to pass unchallenged. For one thing, Optimus knows the futility of trying to appease Megatron by offering him a few human sacrifices. Also, when he’s not a giant robot warrior for justice, he’s a truck… which means those white rural Christians insulted by Megan Fox are his people. A sentient eighteen-wheeler would receive a very warm welcome if he rolled up to any truck stop or stock-car rally in the South.
I can’t see any reason to tolerate a nominee for the highest court in the land making repeated statements that her racial heritage and sex make her wiser and better qualified to be a jurist. Not very long ago, our culture demanded the summary termination of veteran sportscaster Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder, because he made public comments that black athletes are naturally superior because they were bred for strength and stamina during the era of slavery. We are, correctly, repulsed by theories of racial superiority or inferiority being pumped into our public discourse. Jimmy the Greek said something crass and stupid. So did Sonia Sotomayor, and she did it more than once. You can easily list a number of racial heritages that Sotomayor would not have been allowed to cite as reasons for her superior judicial temperament. I’ve written before that if she was a German woman named Sonia Sotomacher, and she had a history of claiming her Teutonic heritage made her a superior jurist, we’d be going into the second week of Barack Obama’s impeachment hearings by now. Claiming one race is superior to another is logically as offensive as claiming one race is inferior to the others. We should not demand higher standards of our sportscasters than we do of our Supreme Court justices.
We have learned to despise racism and bigotry because we revere the dignity and humanity of all people, regardless of their skin color or religious beliefs. We even extend this reverence to religions that are hostile to our common culture, or wish to segregate themselves from it, provided they respect our laws and the rights of fellow citizens. We have also learned that language plays an important role in shaping ideas and behavior. We insist on using terms like “African-American” because we understand the importance of addressing people with dignity and respect. I doubt many of us are under the illusion that such polite language completely erases bigoted thoughts from people’s minds – how many of us could honestly say we go through our adult lives, or even a single day, without having thoughts which are unworthy of expression through public speech? Everyone occasionally has feelings as unpleasant as the garbage floating around in Megan Fox’s head… but most of us would know better than to pour them into microphones.
We are a culture that swims in an all-encompassing ocean of media. Every waking hour is filled with light and noise from televisions, computers, and radios. Our commitment to the freedom of speech should be matched with a commitment to the quality of speech, to keep that ocean of media as clean as possible. Because we rightly recoil from the idea of using government censorship against anything except the most vile profanity, it’s up to private citizens to raise their voices against those who assert the power to strip political opponents of their dignity and humanity, or those who believe the poisonous doctrines of racial superiority are less toxic for certain races. A cretin like Dave Letterman is free to tell all the rape jokes he wants, but no one should be pointing a camera at him, or handing him a paycheck for doing it. In a nation committed to keeping the government from policing our speech, while embracing technology that can make anyone’s voice heard in millions of homes, intolerance is our only effective weapon against bigotry. We should use it more often.
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White people have done bad stuff and still hold power, so it’s ok to abuse them however you wish until the scales are balanced again!
PS. The scales can never be balanced again!
See how that works DZ? It’s very simple; I learned it in sociology class. I had no idea what a racist, warmongering, hegemony enabler I was.
TheUnrepentantGeek on June 10, 2009 at 3:09 PM
I think I was sitting behind you in that class…
Apparently white women from Alaska, and their teenage daughters, are the most terrible oppressors of all. Who knew?
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 3:31 PM
Contessa Brewer sums up the attitude: How can the Palins be offended by these insults if they’re not even human?
Jim Treacher on June 10, 2009 at 5:45 PM
To be fair, Sotomayor only wants a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, whereas Jimmy the Greek held a more powerful and influential position as in-house bookie for NFL Today.
Karl on June 10, 2009 at 5:48 PM
I think it was Mark Twain that said: “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.”
The last is unfortunately no longer true.
zerosheep on June 10, 2009 at 6:09 PM
As Hank Hill said in long running TV show King of the Hill,
” What the hell kind of country is this if I can only hate a man if he’s white?”
I called Lexus one of the advertisers of Letterman and complained as a Lexus owner.
Ricki on June 10, 2009 at 7:42 PM
Just remember only white people can be racists
Grunt on June 10, 2009 at 7:46 PM
Another great piece, Dr. Z!
I thought your piece on the economy was excellent, as was this.
Ragspierre on June 10, 2009 at 7:49 PM
Letterman just signed a long term contract with CBS which is why he summoned the courage to attack a mother and her child. He ain’t going anywhere sadly.
RobCon on June 10, 2009 at 7:49 PM
Doctor Zee, it’s writing like this that is quickly making me a fan of you. Good call on moving you up into the Green Room.
As for the Freedom of Speech, of course we all have it. As does Letterman. As it should be.
However, something that people, especially people who generally tend to like and/or generally agree with the person who sparked whichever ‘controversey’ in question, tend to forget is that with ANY Freedom comes responsibility. Absolutely feel free to say anything that you wish to say for whatever reason (stopping short, of course, of inciting or encouraging some sort of criminal behavior). BUT, while you have that freedom, you also have the responsibilty to accept the results of that speech.
If Letterman, or Sotomayor, or anyone else for that matter, believe what they have said, more power to ya! But, it’s not MY fault if people tune out of your comedy show, or (in the case of Letterman) switch to Conan instead of Late Night.
One illustration on people forgetting this this was in the KC Star Letters section a couple of year ago concerning the Dixie Chicks. A concert had been scheduled in Kansas City, which was later cancelled because very few tickets sold. A letter to the paper actually said they thought it was horrible that people would not buy tickets to the show, because, after all, we have freedom of speech!
JamesLee on June 10, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Bravo, we must not allow the intolerant bigots of the left to go unchallenged any longer.
exceller on June 10, 2009 at 7:51 PM
Wow, this was very well put. Intolerance is accepted so long as it is of whites or conservatives (or both!).
Stomper on June 10, 2009 at 7:56 PM
Well-said, except -
Geez, am I a bigot to not “revere” religions that are “hostile to our common culture”? Especially if the goal is to change our laws? Not participating via “segregation” is one thing, but being actively “hostile”?
Buy Danish on June 10, 2009 at 7:58 PM
The thing is, people think Jimmy the Greek’s words matter, and Sonia Sotomayor’s don’t. Perhaps because we figure that Jimmy was saying what he really felt, and Judge Sotomayor was just, you know, pandering, like all good leftists do.
And, that Letterman’s nasty comments are OK because he was “only kidding”. Too bad he’s decided that being part of the elite crowd is more important than human decency, or even the humor he is supposed to be creating. Would he be amused if people joked about his son that way?
As I tell my kids, if you have to say, “no offense!” before you say something, you should just stop right there and not say a thing.
mrsbash on June 10, 2009 at 7:59 PM
Tell CBS what you think of Dave…
http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php
katy on June 10, 2009 at 8:04 PM
Say what you mean and mean what you say. Stop trying to appease the Politically Correct Gods, because you will never win. They’ll always hate you. Stand up for yourself and face those headwinds. Any conservatives who still have any fear out there- STOP IT!!! Realize that they’re trying to suck you and the debate into a maelstrom of constant white/male guilt and race/sex baiting, but don’t back down.
That being said, the good Doctor is right. We should all strive for a better tone. Problem the people who make the rules break the rules then complain when those who disagree break them as well.
It’s frustrating.
Speaking of jokes, I liked Rush’s show today, he made some interesting jokes and they were just livid. Proving the innate hypocrisy of the left.
xax on June 10, 2009 at 8:08 PM
Word. A clear example of how might makes wrong is Israel. They were the plucky underdog until they really kicked a$$ in ‘67. After they kicked a$$ again in ‘73, well, by ‘75 it was “Zionism = Racism” time in the UN. Then came Edward Said and his poisonous, post-modern book “Orientalism,” and voila! Israel was a colonial oppressor. (Hmm, how does that work? So one can be a colonial oppressor w/o any colonies? Does this mean that one day I, humble me, could be a colonial oppressor?) Once you get onto the post-modern shite-list, you’re dead meat on the college campuses.
smellthecoffee on June 10, 2009 at 8:20 PM
Here’s a politically incorrect question. If all of the white people in positions of power are removed from those positions, and white people in general become the minority in this country, does that mean that the U.S. will start to be more like Africa, South America, and the Middle East?
I can’t wait!
ExcessivelyDiverted on June 10, 2009 at 8:20 PM
What a great analysis!
ctmom on June 10, 2009 at 8:24 PM
I thought you made some great points forcefully and lucidly but I also felt you shot down your own balloon with this:
It is no better than calling somebody a hooker and I’d like to encourage you not to sully your prose with name-calling; its ugly and self-defeating no matter who does it.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 8:31 PM
Amen!!
Khun Joe on June 10, 2009 at 8:33 PM
I wouldn’t blame him if Willow Palin’s father punched David Letterman right in the nose.
Knott Buyinit on June 10, 2009 at 8:44 PM
PS: re above, Willow Palin is not a hooker, while David Letterman is a cretin. I see no reason not to call him one. That’s the difference, see, the truth.
Knott Buyinit on June 10, 2009 at 8:47 PM
And here is a politically incorrect answer: Yes.
However I dont think the issue has anything to do with skin colour.
I see it as an issue of culture and coherence. Certain ideas encourage stability, certain ideas encourage innovation, certain ideas encourage social justice, certain ideas encourage personal responsibility. Protestant thought happened to tie together a set of ideas that encouraged the formation of a place like the USA. This doesn’t mean that those ideas are necessarily true, or even that they are the best but they are the foundation on which the nation sits.
A certain amount of diversity above the foundations helps keep a society on its toes, too much diversity and the society loses its coherence and starts to fracture leading to demands for ever greater government control. Lots of diversity in the foundations probably means never-ending civil war.
If that cultural group, who happen to be mostly pale skinned, were removed then I would expect the resulting nation to fall apart in the same way and for the same reasons that so many other nations struggle to function properly.
These are perhaps my main reasons for opposing the social-restructuring habits of western governments. The multicultural experiment — no matter how well meaning — cannot possibly give rise to a strong, safe, stable society. Unless the multicultural dream is swiftly abandoned and reversed, outcome cannot be anything other than messy and, probably, violent.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 8:50 PM
The far right that protested against gay rights in 2009 and voting rights in 1959 really should not be lecturing anyone in regards to intolerance and meanness.
I think we should all step back and embrace empathy, solidarity and social justice. No more pointing fingers at minorities as the sources of all of society’s ills.
SouthernGal on June 10, 2009 at 8:51 PM
I doubt if it is the truth but even if you are correct, by asserting it you lose far more than you gain.
Name-calling is what the youth-activists do best, and they use that tactic because they could never win a rational argument with their ideas.
If you want to use such tactics then, please, come-up with something that is at least as effective as the names used by opposition. Our opponents got clever and invented long, impressive sounding names like ‘homophobic’ and with that abuse of language they have managed to stifle debate and push their agenda forward. So, although they used the sort of tactics that would be expected in a school-yard, they did actually get something they wanted from demeaning themselves and inhibiting intelligent discussion.
By contrast, calling people ‘cretins’, sluts’ or ‘hookers’ merely drives people away, derails debate and gains nothing in return for the damage caused.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 9:08 PM
I think we should lay the blame on weak minded, guilt ridden, spineless, accept everything/believe in nothing liberals.
Or did I miss a sarc/ thingy there somewhere???
BigWyo on June 10, 2009 at 9:17 PM
Did you forget to put a sarcasm tag around that?
Its kind of impossible to have solidarity with people who have radically different goals and a radically different concept of what justice entails. However, just for the sake of debate, let’s imagine that we can at least empathise with one another …
… then what?
Flip some coins to decide who shoots first?
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 9:20 PM
All we nonsarcastic people ask is that we should all embrace solidarity, social justice, and empathy.
We believe all races and religions can live in peace in America and there is no need to shoot each other over things we can disagree about civilly — topics like abortion, foreign policy, and religion.
SouthernGal on June 10, 2009 at 9:25 PM
Check your history. That was the democrats. Remember, the KKK and all that? Not the republicans, not even once.
tcn on June 10, 2009 at 9:30 PM
Thanks! I did so.
Cylor on June 10, 2009 at 9:41 PM
I am talking about ideology not party. It was the far-right and is the far-right that opposes equality.
SouthernGal on June 10, 2009 at 9:43 PM
It’s like ole Optimus always says: “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”
ZK on June 10, 2009 at 9:50 PM
Then you are asking for something that is impossible to achieve because solidarity implies common interests and common goals. So two people cannot have solidarity with one another concerning some matter that they completely disagree about.
Expecting the impossible to occur is not really a sensible policy for running a nation.
Personally I don’t think ‘race’ is significant and I wish everybody would stop talking about it.
However ideas and beliefs, which is what ‘religions’ are a part of, are significant. Some people have un-civil ideas and you cannot disagree civily with somebody who wishes you dead and has the power to kill you. Unfortunately brute force (AKA violence) does have a role to play, no matter how much we would wish it otherwise.
Some people can disagree civily about some things, but that civility is not possible between all people in all matters. We cannot resolve every difference of opinion in the world with a few carefully chosen words, a smile and a shake of the hand.
What you are asking people to accept and believe is a fantasy that is daily shattered when it encounters real people and real situations.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 9:51 PM
I blame the Republican party for not fighting back against the demonizing of Conservatives that’s been going on since the 1970’s. I’m sick of hearing people say “nobody wants to hear a political party whine about media bias”. Well the Democrats whine and rant and rave about everything and it never hurts them.
Does the media benefit from their left wing bias? No, it hurts their ratings. Does Hollywood benefit from churning out left wing movies? No, these movies always flop. Do universities benefit from being controlled by hard left professors? No, the Duke rape case hurt that university’s credibility. The only ones who benefit from demonizing Conservatives are the Democrat party and the American Left. And who is hurt the most by this propaganda campaign? The Republican party.
And yet, the Republican party walks on eggshells around all this hatred. They don’t want to get too close to Rush Limbaugh. They don’t want to harp on media bias. They don’t want to complain too much about academia or Hollywood. But the fact is, in order to mount a serious counter attack against the likes of Letterman, the Republican party must lead the charge. Otherwise, we don’t stand a chance.
ardenenoch on June 10, 2009 at 9:54 PM
What you are suggesting is unacceptable in civil society. In 2009 America we should not be having to worry about having gunfights over whose religion is better.
SouthernGal on June 10, 2009 at 10:01 PM
I oppose the pursuit of ‘equality’ and I am not far-anything.
I oppose it for the simple reason that the usual way that ‘equality’ is used is meaningless. When people talk about achieving equality their arguments often have all the intellectual substance of soap bubbles.
Nobody is ‘equal’ to anybody else. The only way that we can call ourselves equal without the language losing its meaning is to qualify the equality: For example “everyone is equally valuable in the eyes of God” or “everyone is equal before the law.”
Of those two only the first one could actually be true in practice and then only if one believes in that ‘god’ in the first place. Equality before the law is a desirable goal but it will never be truly achieved until we are all perfect. The fact that the law exists even implies an inequality since somebody must evaluate the competing interests and decide whose idea of justice should prevail.
I have a question:
How should we reconcile the desires and ideas of a group of homosexuals with the desires and ideas of a group of followers of Mohammed the so-called prophet?
Their goals and ideas are completely at odds with one another.
You would like these two groups to “embrace empathy” for one another. Your first problem is that ‘empathy’ is not something that can be ‘embraced’ so lets resort to plain English … you’d like them to empathise with one another. Could be tricky … one group wants to have sex with the other and the other group wants to kill the first group for wanting to have sex with them.
Second you want them to have ’solidarity’ with one another which implies that you want them to help one another achieve their respective goals even though what each group wants is utterly reprehensible to the other. That is going to be messy in so many ways.
Social justice? Will they agree about that before one group is killed by the other or afterwards? Who is going to concede what to who? Who decides what concessions should be made, and who enforces the concession rules, and how? Why is the opinion of that arbitrator not equal in value to the opinions of the warring parties? Why should they pay any attention to this arbitrator?
Long words and cute phrases don’t magically turn nonsense into a sensible policy. Any society that tries to attain your impossible goal will tear itself apart trying, to be replaced by something far more oppressive than itself … which is, sadly, exactly what is happening in the free world today.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 10:24 PM
At least Letterman didn’t call the Palins
THAT would have been wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy over the line………..
(/sarc)
Seven Percent Solution on June 10, 2009 at 10:43 PM
I don’t think we have to like a particular religion to afford it due reverence. Provided the followers of that religion respect our laws and customs, and understand that our commitment to religious freedom does not restrain us from answering their challenges and criticisms, we should respect their commitment to search for divinity, and restrain the worst of human impulses. Reverence for the religious practices of others doesn’t require the slightest bit of agreement with what they practice, any more than our respect for free speech requires us to agree with the content of that speech – a point often lost on the Dixie Chicks of the world, who confuse criticism with oppression.
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 10:45 PM
Notice she picked the group least likely to give a damn about what she said. Unlike other groups, who would already be in the streets, burning somebody’s car or chopping off somebody’s head.
Well played, Megan.
BobMbx on June 10, 2009 at 10:49 PM
Regarding my own earlier post: I do realise that there is a wide range of opinion among people who consider themselves to be homosexual or Muslim or both. I have merely attempted to give a simple example to consider for the debate, not a comprehensive description of humanity.
YiZhangZhe on June 10, 2009 at 10:50 PM
I take your point, but I would point out some significant differences:
1. David Letterman is both a grown adult, and a highly compensated public media figure. Bristol and Willow Palin are teenage girls who have not forced themselves into the public sphere – the only reason Letterman knows who they are is the identity of their mother. Insulting Letterman for his boorish behavior is qualitatively different than his launching vile insults at those girls for cheap laughs.
2. Letterman started all this. I don’t believe I’ve ever referred to him as a cretin before today. He earned it.
3. “Cretin” is a term referring to someone who is willfully obtuse. Letterman followed up his rape joke by calling Bristol Palin a hooker. There is a point at which a word like “cretin” stops being an insult, and becomes an adjective.
4. “Cretin” is pretty weak tea as far as insulting language goes. It wouldn’t be easy to start a bar fight with it. (Well, I guess that depends on the bar.)
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 10:55 PM
I seem to recall Rush employing legal resources to go after someone who insinuated he was a racist, back in the mid-90s. He said something about how important it was to fight that kind of garbage, relentlessly and vigorously, before it takes hold. Conservatives will never get much help from the media in protecting their reputations – Andrew Sullivan is still employed by his magazine, after all, long past the point where they should have cashiered him and apologized to their readers for associating with someone so deranged.
We would do well as a culture to develop aggressive intolerance for smears and bigotry. I’m going to do what I can to lead the way. For example, I’m feeling a rising swell of intolerance for someone who would abuse the privilege of posting on a conservative web site by trying to hijack a thread with mindless crap like “It was the far-right and is the far-right that opposes equality.”
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 11:04 PM
Do I need Doctor Zero’s permission to make a video of this for youtube?
(Yes, I’m a noob.)
JakeRightThought on June 10, 2009 at 11:12 PM
Letterman is a deceiver, a dissembler
So much so his trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?
What infernal serpent
Has lent him his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all his slanders sprung?
What red devil of mendacity
Grips his soul with such tenacity?
Will one he cruelly showers with lies
Put a pistol ball between his eyes?
PercyB on June 10, 2009 at 11:18 PM
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 11:04 PM
I wrote a polite email to Allah asking him to be intolerant of a certain poster who is doing nothig but spewing hate here. I’ve written eamils and letters to sponsons of Letternman’s show and I will boycott. I’m getting very tired of all this. I feel that we are going to end up in another civil war in the country if the Hatefilled Left doesn’t back off and soon!
BTW…I’m a fan of all you write!
CCRWM on June 10, 2009 at 11:19 PM
What a stimulating intellectual argument Dr. Zero poses and I agree 100%. Somehow the crassness of our society seems to sink to newer lows since Bush was elected. I’m reminded of Judge Robt. Borks book “Slouching Toward Gammorra” about (Defining Deviancy Down). In his book he laid out the premise that the more outrageous or deviant an act is, once it’s witnessed by the population a sort of numbness sets in within us. In order to find something that outrages us again, it takes an even more sinister act than what outraged us before in order to muster outrage again.
I think our society started falling apart back when President Clinton had the audacity to soil the Oval Office by having oral sex with Monica in the peoples office. The outrage that most Americans felt at that time was offset by excuses of the offense by those on the left. Once that happened and his behavior was excused, the crassness of our society started to sharpen. Now no one would be the least bit bothered if O’bama did the very same thing in the future. It fails to shock us anymore and we’ve become a society now that has become so crass that Letterman felt comfortable making those kind of statements. If he were still alive, can you imagine someone like Johnny Carson delivering this kind of back alley humor? Even Jay Leno has more class than Letterman. 30 years ago our society wouldn’t have allowed this to stand. They would have run Letterman out of town on a rail.
FreedomLover on June 10, 2009 at 11:20 PM
I think I was a Doctor Zero virgin up until this moment. Excellent!!! Too many quotables to count.
jjjen on June 10, 2009 at 11:25 PM
Letterman is a filthy pervert.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he had kiddie porn on his home PC.
atheling on June 10, 2009 at 11:43 PM
If so, you have it!
Doctor Zero on June 10, 2009 at 11:46 PM
Yeah, she sure is courageous, isn’t she?!
Sterling Holobyte on June 10, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Submitted less then five minutes ago…
Apparently it is just fine with CBS to slam white Christian conservative women and their children, but if “Mr” Letterman had said something like this about “Mr” Obama’s children or even worse, (God Forbid!) Ms. Sotomayor he’d be slapped soundly around buy both cbs and ge officials, right? This is why the Late Show’s ratngs have slipped so badly against Tonight show both old and new and I firmly expect that our good friend Dave will lose even more viewers now. I for one will never watch his show again. So sorry CBS but your liberal Christian hating slip is showing AGAIN!
Vntnrse on June 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM
Exactly. Which is why the left constantly pushes the envelope(with the help of the mass media), just a little further each time, until what is abnormal and obscene is the new normal in people’s eyes.
Sterling Holobyte on June 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM
I always thought the battle to keep Clinton in office did serious damage to the culture, and it’s only gotten worse over the years. Our politics was hardly a landscape of jolly good fellowship before that, but The Year of Lewinsky seemed to change something for the worse. Comparisons to Watergate often point out that Nixon was no slouch in the obstinacy or lust for power departments, but in the end, he and his party had the simple decency to arrange his resignation. Twenty-five years later, we got a taste of what might have happened if they had decided to fight until the bitter end.
I’ve never forgotten the nauseating spectacle of Clinton’s hit team going after Ken Starr – can you imagine if George W. Bush had assigned a team of character assassins to fan out across the airwaves and savagely destroy, say, Patrick Fitzgerald? In the casual ugliness of Letterman, or Megan Fox’s robot holocaust fantasies, you can see echoes of Alec Baldwin going on national television to encourage the violent murder of Henry Hyde and his family. A generation before Clinton, his desperate commitment to hold power at any cost, and destroy anyone from government officials to private citizens who threatened him, would have been considered monstrous. A generation later, the young daughters of an inconvenient politician are fodder for thoughtless atrocity on a show carried by one of the major networks, beamed into millions of homes.
The Clinton impeachment saga cost the Democrat Party a chunk of its soul. Feminists who howled with outrage over the merest whiff of sexual harassment were suddenly happy to give the world’s most powerful sexual harasser a coupon book of free passes. Civil-rights figures who questioned the black authenticity of Clarence Thomas spun on a dime and declared Clinton to be “the first black president,” cheapening the mighty, centuries-long saga of black civil rights into a cheap trinket that could be pinned onto the lapels of a white politician they especially liked. The party that created the Office of the Independent Counsel, in an ostentatious display of dedication to the cause of “good government,” threw away even the pretense of principle to burn a bothersome Independent Counsel at the stake. The Democrats, and their constituencies, have never been the same since.
Doctor Zero on June 11, 2009 at 12:07 AM
Great article Dr Z, the Palins deserve a very sincere apology. To bad Dave doesnt have a sincere bone in his body
General America on June 11, 2009 at 12:09 AM
It’s only ok to say these things if you’re a liberal, obviously.
Spiritk9 on June 11, 2009 at 1:01 AM
It’s just the way things are now.
Everyone’s a protected special class….except white Christians, white Republicans, and anyone who is white who won’t admit that he or she is part of the inferior race. All other races, creeds, and political beliefs are special and deserving of “tolerance.” We’re not.
Funny how we never insist on the term Caucasian-American.
….The fact that nobody amongst the cultural elite bats an eye at Letterman’s joke, or Megan Fox’s bigoted remarks, or Sotomayor’s racial supremacist mindset, is proof that I am right.
Hawkins1701 on June 11, 2009 at 4:24 AM
I quit watching Letterman when he stopped being funny. That was 1994.
TexasBella on June 11, 2009 at 4:34 AM
Oh, and another stellar post, DZ. Your work really deserves its own collected print edition.
I’d buy it.
Hawkins1701 on June 11, 2009 at 4:37 AM
Congratulations on a great post DZ.
This incident is interesting in that it points out the leftist game of “If you insult our side in any way it’s criminal, but if we insult you we’re just joking – lighten up.”
Sure, you have freedom of speech to call your boss any vile name you choose. And he or she has the right to fire you for that offensive behaviour.
I say fire the creep.
PaddyJ on June 11, 2009 at 4:42 AM
Oh, and I should add that anyone who is NOT white who holds these beliefs are race traitors. I was remiss in not mentioning them.
Hawkins1701 on June 11, 2009 at 4:43 AM
Thanks for the link. I sent a note expressing my disgust at how low DL has decided to stoop for a cheap laugh.
Like so many social / fiscal conservatives nowadays, I find myself thinking “what’s the use” but I persist in the hopes that it’ll make a difference…no matter how small.
jthibod on June 11, 2009 at 4:59 AM
One of the best essays I’ve ever read on this site, and perhaps the best-reasoned.
Owen Glendower on June 11, 2009 at 6:18 AM
Hope I don’t get my account banned for saying this, but Jimmy the Greek was pointing out a fact: Black slaves were bred selectively for their strength. There is no denying that. Maybe he took it a little too far, that’s not for me to judge.
It’s amazing how Blacks don’t want anyone to believe (rightfully so) disgusting stereotypes like intelligence of Blacks, personal hygiene habits of Blakcs, work habits of Blacks etc., but they do want you to believe the stereotype of their sexual prowess and endowments.
I’m just sayin’.
You hit the nail on the head on the hypocrisy against Conservatives.
SuperManGreenLantern on June 11, 2009 at 7:02 AM
Liberals preach tolerance, but offer none.
MarkTheGreat on June 11, 2009 at 7:31 AM
Yes in does. The world is full of examples: countries in Africa and Latin America.
History has also given us examples of what is in store for the U.S.: the ancient Egyptian, Roman and Greek civilization come to mind.
TheSitRep on June 11, 2009 at 7:56 AM
Thanks, katy.. DONE !!
Now, can someone direct me to the list of his advertisers ?
pambi on June 11, 2009 at 8:47 AM
Hope this isn’t a duplicate post:
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Intel
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SuperManGreenLantern on June 11, 2009 at 10:00 AM
THANKS !!
pambi on June 11, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Go to HillBuzz. They have everything with links. Lots of them. Then come back here.
Geochelone on June 11, 2009 at 11:35 AM
Not to be the “vocabulary police” but don’t you mean something like “argue” or “believe or “promote“?
MB4 on June 11, 2009 at 8:10 PM
or maybe “in effect concede to those who believe”?
MB4 on June 11, 2009 at 8:12 PM
Leo Strauss pegged the issue with a society embracing tolerance as its cardinal virtue in his book Natural Right and History — back in the early 1970’s. Simply put: What does such a society do when confronted with an intolerant population, particularly an internal one? Such a society either invalidates its raison d’etre or allows itself to be rent apart — either way, it cannot last. To survive, a civilization or culture must make — wait for the dreaded word — judgements concerning civil behavior, and resolve to be intolerant of behavior that deviates to an egregious degree from those judgements. To prosper, those judgements must be consonant with the common sense, morals, ethics, and values of the preponderance of the community. Isaiah Berlin spoke of the ethos of pluralism as opposed to that of multiculturalism — in a pluralist society, the dominant culture respects and elevates everything about minority or foreign cultures that is not flatly contradictory to the core tenets of the dominant culture, while in the multicultural episteme the goal becomes the denial that a dominant culture exists, which in practical if not explicit terms means the eventual eradication of the dominant culture. In the latter case, both the basis and the cohesive force of a society is willfully destroyed.
All of which, I suppose, is a circuitous route toward expressing strong agreement with the thrust of DrZ’s piece. As a culture, among our central tenets have historically been the defense of innocence and meritocracy. To tolerate an innocent child being sexually assaulted, if only verbally, before an audience of tens of millions, should be socially intolerable, and thus not tolerated. For a presumptive Justice of the United States Supreme Court to express the opinion that one’s biography rather than one’s skills and the caliber of one’s mind qualifies one for such high office should be politically intolerable, and thus not tolerated. Legal penalty is not required here, for that violates another of our highest tenets. Ostracism, scorn, and ultimately dismissal from our collective consciousness are the keys to such a sacred intolerance. Interestingly, in ancient Athens, ostracism was held to be a harsher penalty than death — maybe we’ll arrive there again . . .
loneloc on June 11, 2009 at 10:06 PM