(no subject)

[suspectclass]

Look who's coming to speak at Smith on Friday!

"Gore also complained that Bush has made the 'rest of the world' angry at us. Boo hoo hoo. He said foreigners are not worried about 'what the terrorist networks are going to do, but about what we're going to do.'

Good. They should be worried. They hate us? We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell angry fanatics. So sorry they're angry – wait until they see American anger. Japanese kamikaze pilots hated us once too. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons, and now they are gentle little lambs. That got their attention."

"Perhaps we could get Djibouti to like us if we legalized clitorectomies for little girls. America is fighting for its survival and the Democrats are obsessing over why barbarians hate us."

"Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the Democrats would not have enough information to make an informed decision on Iraq – until January. The war will have to take a back seat to urgent issues like prescription drugs and classroom size until then. The Democratic Party simply cannot rouse itself to battle.

Instead of obsessing over why angry primitives hate Americans, a more fruitful area for Democrats to examine might be why Americans are beginning to hate Democrats."

"Soon feminists took up the issue of girl-firemen, demanding to know what possible arguments there were, pray tell, for women not to be firemen. (A short list: their inability to pick up the hose, their tendency to cry and panic when confronted with dangerous situations, the effect on families whose homes are on fire when they open the door and see the female equivalent of Michael Dukakis in a tank.)"

I can't decide which quote is my favorite.

Comments

[masscooper.livejournal.com]

Hey, they paid her fee, she can come and speak, and I think that she should be allowed to speak without disruption. There is a Q&A session afterward, and the liberal and left populations of Smith have plenty of resources at hand to formulate a rebuttal, whether in terms of asking her questions, disseminating literature that disproves her points, or bringing a speaker to do that. Going in and disrupting her speech will do nothing but discredit the liberal population. There are plenty of ways to show disagreement that don't amount to playing into her hands or the hands of the Republican Club. Maybe if they are unsuccessful at getting the disruption they anticipate, they won't feel the need to be so antagonistic.

In response to your Klan comparison --Ann isn't coming in a sheet with her cronies to burn crosses on our lawns or lynch us. She's voicing an opinion. I don't agree with her opinion, and in fact, I think it's vile and reprehensible. Not only that, but her style of writing, at least is based on over-simplifications which preclude any rational debate. She sets up a straw man liberal and takes an ax to it. That isn't good solid reasoning, but it is protected by the constitution. Just because I believe that the opinions she holds are immoral, and the way she states them impossible to respect, doesn't mean that I should stop her from saying them.

Re:

[greyandred.livejournal.com]

I see what you're saying, but believe me, you don't pose any threat to Coulter's freedom of speech. She's got all the access to the airwaves she needs-- you don't. No one's suggesting that Congress make any law infringing upon the free speech of Ann Coulter-- but there's a big difference between governmental repression, which is the point of the First Amendment, and a grassroots show of opposition. Ann Coulter isn't a Klan member, and she's not affiliated with them-- she IS, however, a "respectable" mainstream racist. (Remember, she's the one who thinks that all Muslims should convert or be killed.) When the ideologues of the right can get away with saying this sort of thing in the mainstream media without a public outcry, it legitimizes what the Klan does, as right-wing extremist groups have been quick to point out.

Another part of what I mean when I say that Coulter does not need you to defend her right to speak is that, no matter how much the Republicans might cry free speech when someone protests one of their events, they have no intention of defending the left's right to free speech. Look at what happened on campuses across the country after 9/11-- when left-wing groups brought in speakers who opposed the war on terrorism, the Republicans not only counterprotested, but they also went to administrations to insist that the speakers not be allowed on campus. Try bringing in a speaker who opposes Israel and see what the Republicans do.

If you take seriously their baiting of you, you let them set the terms of the debate, and that can be a dangerous mistake. Let them say whatever they want about what the campus left does-- it's not a question of who can be the most open-minded and accomodating to the racist, it's a question of what this person stands for and whether that should be opposed. It's because of the history of repression of the left, of racism, and of the devastating consequences of US interventions based on the principles Coulter espouses that we have to fight back. If you give the right an inch, they will take away YOUR freedom of speech-- they did it in the 1910s, 1930s and 1950s and they won't hesitate to do it again if we let them.

It's important to show that people like Coulter do NOT represent the majority of people. Coulter and Bush and all the rest of them should not be able to appear in public without being dogged and embarrassed. After all, most of the people in the US and the world are horrified by them-- that often doesn't show when they appear in public, because they often get to decide who gets to be in the audience and which media get access. If she and her cronies can't speak in public without being embarrassed and opposed, that's a much more realistic representation of what's actually happening in American politics. The Klan can't appear in public without facing anger and protest, because what they stand for is reprehensible to any intelligent and moral person. Why shouldn't it be the same for those who legitimize what the Klan has to say?

Just my 2c. :-)

s