This is why I say that they have retired the concept of hypocrisy. It goes far beyond double standards or duplicity or bad faith. There's an aggression to it, a boldness, that dares people to bring up the bald and obvious fact that the person making the charge is herself a far worse perpetrator of the thing she is decrying. There's an intellectual violence in it.I would also include crap like this in the same category. "Intellectual violence" is a perfect term for it.
In a world in which the conservatives weren't such post modern shape shifters, we could come to a consensus on certain issues in this country --- like privacy, for instance. We could agree that it's wrong for government employees to use private information for partisan purposes --- or for the media, including bloggers, to stalk and publish private information of anyone who dares speak out for a political cause. But we don't live in a world like that.
We live in a world where the right wing ruthlessly and without mercy degrades and attacks by any means necessary what they perceive as the enemy, and then uses the great principles of democracy and fair play when the same is done to them. They leave the rest of us standing on the sidelines looking like fools for ever caring about anything but winning.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Intellectual violence
Behold another great post from Digby. Here's part of it:
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2 comments:
Sorta like this:
1.The Democratic Party of Idaho has been criticized this week for publishing the social security numbers of GOP Rep. Bill Sali and his wife in a Democratic campaign mailer
2.Seattle Paper Publishers Pictures and Addresses of Homes With McCain Signs
3. Hacking Governor Palins email account and publishing the emails and her email address, as well as her husbands and others.
4. When Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher of Toledo made political headlines, state authorities checked to see if he is behind in his child support payments.
5.Bill Clinton using a White House intern like a cheap whore in the Oval Office and lying about same under oath: not a problem.
6. Sarah Palin defending herself against Lefty Bloggers and the MSM to question whom the baby Trig mother was ?
Yes indeed there is some hypocrisy and it not just on the right side of the political spectrum.
Hi Jimmy! Thanks for stopping by. No one disputes that hypocrisy can be found on all sides of the political spectrum. It's the sheer quantity, audacity and mainstreaming of such that sets the reactionary right apart from all others.
That said, a couple of your counterpoints deserve addressing:
#4. This seems like a good idea. Was he?
#5. The "cheap whore" reference to Monica Lewinsky is a cheap shot. She and Bill Clinton were consenting adults and there is nothing to suggest that she was not eager to participate. No one ever suggested that their activities were "not a problem" but the vast majority of the country believed that, however improper and distasteful that relationship was, it did not rise to the standard of "high crimes and misdemeaners" that would call for impeachment. Also, of those who really understood the issue, most also felt the same way about the "lying under oath" in a politically motivated lawsuit. Again, not good, but hardly a crime worthy of impeachment. Not like, say, lying the country into a disastrous and ill-conceived war, or, say, authorizing state-sanctioned torture of prisoners.
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