The rules of the game

It's fairly easy to see that the Ann Coulter Republicans want everyone to view politics as a game. If we do, it allows them to discount intelligence and experience, two traits largely lacking among Bush-era conservatives. It also gives their meritless arguments better footing in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. A leg up that represents, I thought, everything Republicans were supposed to hate. So much for taking the personal responsibility to become a well-informed individual.

Though serious adults realize that politics, most certainly, isn't a game, I thought, since a radical minority of Americans view it as such, it's only fair they tell the rest of us the rules. What are the guidelines by which you're playing, Republicans? How do you decide what's right and what's wrong? Who's a patriot and who's a terrorist? Who wins and who loses? Because inquiring minds want to know.

Within the Republican rulebook, is there a rule by which the president can say the New York Times is doing "great harm" to America, pundits can refer to the paper as a national security threat and talk-show hosts can both accuse the Times of treason and support its staffers' executions and everyone looks the other way? Further, that they can do so while a walking national security threat, Karl Rove, roams free and is able to coordinate a smear campaign against the very paper that aided and abetted the administration on multiple occasions? And gave cover to the White House while it waged a war against Joseph Wilson, whose wife was working on actual national security threats, weapons of mass destruction in Iran? If there is, I'd like to know.

Speaking of heated rhetoric, I'm curious to know if there's a rule that gives Republicans carte blanche to call for their opponents' deaths while still labeling those who criticize them as the angry ones. That what's good for Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck and so many others is fine, but the moment Democrats critique, civilly, the administration, we become a frothy pack of angry wolves, a group not in control of our emotions or our sanity? If there is, I'd like to know.

I'd like to know if there is a rule in the playbook by which the Republican Party can use deceased civil rights pioneers as photo props, not go on the record as opposing lynching, speculate that aborting African American children would reduce the crime rate and refer to a black congresswoman as a "ghetto slut" and get away with it? Not only get away with it, but be able to accuse the Democrats of racism for opposing on principle Bush nominees like Alberto Gonzales or Condoleeza Rice, whose minority status is somehow supposed to outweigh their massive incompetence? If there is, I'd like to know.

Also, is there a rule by which a Republican can - not once, but twice - run afoul of the law for drug-related violations, only to see another Republican repeatedly say that there was "no wrongdoing" involved in the latter violation and that the lawbreaker was a victim of "political persecution"? Because I'm wondering if another aspect of that rule involves the second Republican, Bill O'Reilly, having the ability to speak out of one side of his mouth about the first Republican, Rush Limbaugh, while referring to the residents of New Orleans as "drug-addicted" and "thugs"? Or for O'Reilly to let Limbaugh free while saying previously that he would have ordered the execution of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and, were he in charge of Iraq, would shoot curfew violators "on sight"? If there is, I'd like to know.

Finally, is there a rule that allows Republicans to claim that they support the troops while, in reality, the truth would prove otherwise? That allows them to hold sham votes recommending against a timetable that seemingly everyone is calling for? That lets them get away with supporting granting amnesty to those who would torture, mutilate and murder our troops? That allows them to send others to war while they stay home and say things like military service "isn't for our kind of people"? That considers supporting the troops slapping a Rick Santorum bumper sticker on your car? If there is, I'd like to know.

I'd like to know, because I've got the sneaking suspicion that there isn't a rulebook. At least nothing more involved than a simple, six-word phrase, a phrase that has been used over and over to excuse Republican hypocrisy. To whitewash years of wrongdoing. To allow the right to get away, literally and figuratively, with murder. A phrase so short, yet so harmful: It's OK if you're a Republican.

They make up the rules as they go along. They change the rules whenever they feel like it, and they never admit mistakes. They pander to people who enjoy thinking that whatever they happen to be doing at the moment is the rule, even if they change course the next day. Then the rule changes, too. And yes, their golden rule, It's Ok if you're a Republican.

I don't think the Ann Coulter Republicans want people to view politics as a game, as that implies something that is put away after the interest wears off. But you and the blogger's you link are definitely on to something.

I believe the agenda of Ann Coulter Republicans (whether they are consciously aware of it or not) is to create a level political playing field where all opinions (however stupid) are allowed, and all scenarios (however fact-free) are viewed as equally valid. Yes, it has a game-like quality, but these folks are deadly serious.

Coulter's real problem with the 9/11 widows is that their opinions about 9/11 are considered more valid than those of others (like Ann Coulter) because they have actual experience with the event. Coulter is in effect saying, "No, I demand that my opinions be considered just as valid!" In attacking the widows, her intention is to destroy the validity they have if she can't have it too. Hughes addresses this on his blog, but I don't think he goes nearly far enough.

This demand for unearned validity can be detected at every level of the Ann Coulter Republicans' world view. Though uneducated, they want their ideas given equal weight to those based on prolonged study and reflection (this is their real problem with Universities). Though lacking talent or charisma, they are outraged that so much attention is paid to celebrities (this is their real problem with Hollywood). Being neither imaginative or inventive, they can only ridicule "moonbats" with their silly ideas (this is their real problem with Arts and Sciences). Though bigoted and frightened, they want to be considered the equal of those who have put themselves on the line to confront injustice for themselves and others (that is their real problem with us). Ann Coulter Republicans are, ironically, the world greatest advocates for Affirmative Action. In spite of being lazy, ignorant, mean-spirited, bigoted, frightened, and unimaginative, they want to be just as respected as those making the effort to be none of those things.

It's long been clear to me that Rush Limbaugh's message (and now Coulter et all) boils down to this: "Just because you're ignorant, charmless, racist, sexist, angry, and a general failure as a human being doesn't mean you're not just as good as everyone else. In fact you're better! Look at me--I'm rich and famous, and you won't catch me apologizing for being an asshole!" Limbaugh and his ilk are the unrestricted Id of their followers' psyches, rebelling against the Superego calling for restraint, decency, logic, and responsibility--all things, in more irony, Conservatives claim as their own.

Conservatives have few actual ideas of their own. One can see the shadow of Liberal thinking in most of their Big Ideas. I already mentioned their odd form of Affirmative Action. The let-it-all-hang-out nastiness of Limbaugh/Coulter reflects a concept from the Sixties about eschewing pretense in favor of honesty. They've also jumped with both feet onto the Victim Bandwagon, something rooted in attempts to redress injustices done to those who'd been genuinely victimized. Conservatives have transformed that noble intention into an excuse: "It's okay because we've been victimized by all those snotty Liberals who make us feel bad." I think that's where It's OK if you're a Republican comes from. That, and a belief in their own moral superiority. It's OK, 'cause you're morally superior!

you so deftly highlight with a pathetic MSM and weak talk show circuit Dems (who still REFUSE to argue that the 2004 election was STOLEN!!) and you have a great environment for these wingnuts to continue the cycle of insanity. Why everyone buys into the Ann Coulter "we can't attack the 9/11 widows, see I am calling them harpies and being attacked for it" bullshit is simply fucking amazing. Democrats are always on the defensive rather than offensive with our ideas/ideals. What Ann, her supporters and the brain-dead Matt Lauers seem to not understand is that the 9/11 widows couldn't care less about Ann's "analysis" of them. HOWEVER, if Ann would like to address the ISSUES which they raise, the dialogue might be more productive. And criticizing their IDEAS is something that we all can tolerate Ann!
:think:

Senator Feingold's stance, and Levin's nice jab on Fox the other day, are what is needed. No backing down, no apologizing, EVER! If the MSM wants to regurgitate repug talking points, Dems should first ask the questioner why they feel compelled to ask the question as if the foundation for it is legitimate when we all know it is a repug perspective hidden as some neutral talking point. What is the repug playbook rule? Distract, entrap and claim "I gotcha!" What these nefarious ass wipes fail to realize is that we are definitely not drinking the kool aid and I have yet to hear about anyone (other than Lieberman) going from dem to repug.

I am so glad to have my fellow bloggers to vent with or these mother fuckers would have me lose my mind!

:banghead:

.........sadistic???

I love this guys commentaries.

Political Discourse

Listen to this story...(at link)

Fresh Air from WHYY, June 29, 2006 · Linguist Geoff Nunberg
comments on the outrageous nature of political talk shows.
He uses Ann Coulter's remarks describing Sept. 11 widows
as witches to illustrate his point.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5521113>

don't follow the rules the rules have no meaning. Today's Bush followers have obvious thought disorders compounded by loose associations. They do and say what the Hannity/Coulter/Limbaugh/Rove propaganda mill tells them to do and say. Anyone with a reasoned argument is evil and to be met with scorn and hatred.
The Republican party has their own major electronic media outlet in Pox (deliberate typo). We don't, despite the endless protestations about the Librul Media by the victimized party that controls every arm of government and a Fourth Estate that obeys its corporate masters for compensation. They have the machinery in place that counts the votes, thus ensuring unrestrained power.
We are all the victims of the great dumbing down. Was Nietzsche right in his assertion that democracy is flawed because it puts power in the hands of incompetents?

Crush the Other by any means necessary. Methodology is "the ends justify the means". Honest debate ?? Fuck that. We must destroy the enemy.

As an experiment, I became a RW troll on another site that allows such things. I deliberately posted the most outrageous arguments based on evidence I made up. I claimed that Freedom was"God's special Backstage Pass for his true believers", "Homosexuality was invented in the 50's by beatniks" and that "Ben Franklin invented beer", yet many on the right and left couldn't tell I was a fake.

Being a RW Troll was a learning experience. The only goal is to CRUSH THE OTHER, and any means to do so is fair game...because they are THE OTHER, and MUST BE DESTROYED. It is THE OTHER who is undermining us and betraying us and keeping us from becoming great, so they must be eliminated without question. It DOESN'T EVEN MATTER what you believe, for as long as you are THE OTHER, you deserve the worst that can be dished out.


That's the only logic involved.



....and it's not hard to see where this is going.....