Loading ...“Republican Calls for Civility: Just Another Wingnut Sham”
Yet Another Guest Column — This One By The One And ONLY BAD DOG”
In my last column, I pointed out what should be obvious to anybody paying attention—that Republicans have one moral code that applies to themselves, which is naturally nonexistent, and another that applies to Democrats, which is of course extremely strict. I gave numerous examples. One of the funniest is how right wingers asked you why you hate America for criticizing Bush during the War on Terror, but now believe it’s patriotic to criticize Obama on behalf of private insurance companies during the War on Terror. I concluded with one particularly galling example: A wingnut commenter said I showed a lack of character writing a column that was published on 9/11. Meaning, of course, that right wingers that fill the media and blogosphere—including the wingnuts populating this site’s comments board—can trash liberals all they want on 9/11—but liberal bloggers named Bad Dog should be silent out of respect.
I concluded by stating I should be used to the shameless right winger practice of exploiting the tragedy of 9/11 as a way to attack liberals, but it still galls me, especially when it’s done so casually by this site’s resident wingnuts, and for such petty stakes. A wingnut would actually use 9/11 as an excuse even to try to minorly needle a minor liberal blogger.
These people are sick in the head. And they think they should be trusted to run the government again. Um, no.
The reaction to my last rant was so pathetic I can’t even call it surrender anymore. Several right wing commenters made a big clownish show of ignoring me, having a lively discussion about the Food Network (Rachael Ray is hot) and what flowers to plant in the garden (pansies). One commenter made a weird, paranoid assumption that all liberal comments on this site are written by me, as if it takes more than one of me to think he’s an ass. Another brought up some guy named Saul Alinsky for the hundredth time, even though I still don’t even know who that is.
But the prize for whining childishness goes to yet another right winger who can dish it out but can’t take it, running crying to teacher because Bad Dog said something mean about wingnuts on the playground. He writes, “So GTL? While I was out providing food to the world, this is the level of discourse you have let YOUR blog represent? … I’ll make no threats to leave, but this will be my last commentary on anything by this poster.”
I’m already feeling the loss. Well, as consolation, I can take satisfaction in knowing he’ll now have more time to spend providing food to the world.
Which brings me to the subject of this week’s rant, which is that Republicans pretend to want civil debate but when they say “civil,” they mean they get to scream whatever garbage pops into their head in your face, and when they say “debate,” they mean they want to be able to yell at you but the minute you yell back they cry and whine and complain about a “lack of civility.”
Let’s look at some examples:
A recent poll found that one-third of New Jersey conservatives think Obama may be the Anti-Christ; 18% said Obama is definitely the Anti-Christ, and 17% aren’t sure. Further, 14% of Republicans say he has “666″ hidden underneath his hair, while 15% aren’t sure.
I’m supposed to find common ground with these nutjobs? How, exactly?
Another poll found that 58% of Republicans think Obama may not be an American citizen; 28% don’t think he was born in the U.S. and 30% aren’t sure.
Refusing to believe basic facts and gullibly swallowing Big Lies just to question the legitimacy of the guy a majority of Americans voted for last year is “civil debate”? What exactly is there to debate about, other than the basic sanity of the Birthers?
Congressman Joe Wilson (R-Wanker) yelled, “You lie!” during Obama’s speech about healthcare. Right wingers applauded. Michelle Bachmann backed him up, not surprising from the woman who wanted Congress to investigate its members to decide which ones are American and which ones are un-American (I could save her the time and tell her which ones aren’t real Americans right now). The House voted to censure Wilson, but not 179 Republicans, who apparently think it’s okay to shout insults at the President of the United States while the entire world is watching after the President corrects a right wing lie during an address to Congress.
This is “civil debate”? I’m supposed to have a nice conversation with people this obnoxious who can’t even show basic respect for the office of the President of the United States? But what else could we expect from the Party with a Vice President who tells a U.S. Democratic Senator to “go f**k himself” on the Senate floor? Or the Party that today calls Obama Hitler every five minutes of every day, justifying it by saying some liberal at an anti-war protest once compared Bush to Hitler?
These are the people who think gays deserve AIDS and homosexuality should be outlawed, the poor deserve whatever misery they get, that we should nuke Iran, that America should use the Bible (or rather, the parts they like) instead of the Constitution as the fundamental governing document, that America is in a civil war and their so-called “values” were chosen to win by God, that atheists should be denied their rights as citizens, that Christian teachers should indoctrinate kids in school, that teenagers should never be taught about sex, that sex is only for procreation and should never be for pleasure (unless they’re jonesing for a blowjob from a guy in a public restroom), that women should be property and have no rights, and that Armageddon is imminent.
And I’m supposed to find common ground with these losers where, exactly?
Republicans complain they want bipartisanship, and Obama has made several efforts, God knows why, to try to include the GOP in the process of making decisions affecting our country’s future, even appointing Republicans to his cabinet, but then they fight President Obama tooth and nail on every act of legislation, first extracting concessions and then refusing to vote for the legislation anyway. Their definition of bipartisanship apparently entails Obama becoming a Republican whose first act as President would be to try to abolish Medicare, the right for women and minorities to vote, and the separation of Church and State. But even then they’d vote against him.
Celebrated right wing “thinkers” like Michael Wiener-Savage say things like “Liberalism is a mental disorder,” and I’m supposed to say, “Gee, let’s find some common ground” instead of automatically replying, “And you’re a giant ***hole”?
How do you have a dialogue about our country’s future with people so blatantly obnoxious, who so blatantly put Party before country?
These are people who hold a Teabagger protest in Washington to which tens of thousands of people show up and the wingnuts say 2 million people came, then 1.2 million, both of which were false. They attributed the 1.2 million to police and the park and recreation department, which turned out to be a lie. They attributed a 1.5 million figure to ABC, which was another lie. They attributed a quote to a government official saying it was the biggest event ever in Washington, but the government official had been talking about Obama’s inauguration, not the pathetic little Teabagger protest, so there’s yet another lie. And then Michelle Malkin posted a photo of the event, which turned out to be from an event held years ago. Lie, lie, lie, lie.
How am I supposed to talk to people who lie and gullibly pass on lies? People who regard the voice of 70,000 as the voice of the PEOPLE but anti-war protests 5-10 times larger in Washington and New York as merely a temper tantrum of people who didn’t like Bush?
These are the people who change what they believe based on whatever way the wind is blowing—usually hot air from Rush Limbaugh’s mouth and Glenn Beck’s ass—like John McCain, a victim of torture himself, who was against torture until he was for it.
How can I have a rational debate with people who don’t even believe what they’re saying, who switch from “criticize the President during wartime and you’re a traitor” to “criticize the President during wartime and you’re a patriot” just because the new President is a Democrat?
And I haven’t even touched the subject of racism! I’ll save that for another column.
Then there are the pathetic wingnuts who frequent this site for God knows what reason, since their hair catches on fire and their ears bleed whenever a liberal writes something they don’t like. One poster, actually a guest blogger, wrote to the GTL, the site’s owner”
“My God, what has happened to this blog….Maybe Micheal Vick would enjoy watching a Dog rip into someone with no conscious, but this is boring. As the rabid Dog spends God knows how much time in his retort of me personally, siting past comments, he forgets what prompted the need to fight back. Seems thats what Bad Liberals do, forget what they said/did, because they are the superior breed, and attack when others refuse to “lay down” for them….Hey GTL, how about a limit on the number of commments per viewer. I’m getting bored, again, with the Dogs one-sided act…anyone else agree?”
So this blogger wants a real debate, would love to see the GTL become a Hannity & Colmes-style left/right blog, but not if the liberal says mean things about conservatives.
In various requests to the GTL, the site’s administrator, he has tried to have me censored because, based on his posts, apparently liberals aren’t allowed to:
· Contribute guest columns
· Post too often
· Post multiple posts in a row
· Write long posts
· Say things he doesn’t like
Of course, these rules only apply to liberals, not to wingnuts. They can 1) contribute guest columns, 2) post as often as they like, 3) post multiple posts in a row, and 4) write long posts.
This blogger, by the way, wants to be able to say things like the below rants while writing guest columns lamenting the death of civil discourse in America:
“Hey JBFREE…remind you of someone…MAK…has all the answers, goes off on bizzare tangents, and puts down everyone with a differetn view. Oh by the way, so much for his “Canadian health care system”…what a blow hard…. [next post] Hey GTL, my screen saver keeps kicking on everytime the B.D.(boring dog)comments…any suggestions on new setting, he even bores my PC to death…how about limiting the word count for comments? Maybe we could limit the “ball hog” from putting us all to sleep…?…zzzzzz …. [next post] PS JB, about your MAK comment, your correct, I too get a “MAK headache” from the idiot Dogs rants…all ego, all denial, all the time. I quite frankly have had enough of hime. Hell, just turn on MSNBC or CNN, NPR or NBC, any day every day. No difference, same talking points, same bias, same denial. Boring, irritating, and lame. Might be time to find more intelligent and informed life on the internet…. [next post] Amen JB…Amen. So much for finding common ground. Continue on barking into the echo chamber Dog.”
Whoosh! So much for civility!
Let’s face it, wingnuts. You don’t want a civil debate about anything. You just don’t like people disagreeing with you. And it makes you want to cry to mommy and threaten to quit.
The overriding lesson here is be civil, and get civil.
The flip side: Be obnoxious, and get treated like the jerk you are.
Maybe you’ll find the words of the late great Michael Jackson inspiring:
I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror
I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways
And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah)
Agree? Disagree? Have Something To Add? Please Show Your Appreciation To “Bad Dog” For Taking The Time To Author This Guest Column In The Comments Section Below
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@B.D. – I write this because hope springs eternal. I hope something I can saw might shed some light on a couple of things. First let me acknowledge that I don’t recall you ever hurling any insults specifically at me. Second, in my opinion, you haven’t written anything more offensive than what some who oppose you have written. Here is the problem as I see it. Pretend there was a social club with guys and girls. Some girl tells you that all men are misogynistic bastards. You fight fire with fire, by saying all women are dirty tramps. At this point I would say that’s fair, I get it. I don’t approve of what the girl said. Now it continues, the girl keeps hurling both general insults at men and specific insults directed at you. You reply in kind. As completely justified as you may be in your behavior, if other girls at the club end up not wanting to speak to you, would that surprise you under those conditions? I know you think the righteous thing for people to do would be for all the girls in the club to unite and decry the wrong behavior of the first girl. I think that would be an unrealistic expectation. Now I’ve always stumbled with terms like analogy and metaphor or whatever it was I was just writing, perhaps some Freudian desire to be a girl. But back to reality. I remember jumping to your defense and calling out another person on comments made towards you that I thought were way across the line some time back. Since then I still see you write wild generalized insults. You come in with this baggage about someone calling you a traitor for your disagreement with the then President of the United States Bush on the invasion and war with Iraq. And you never let up on it, I never called you a traitor. I’ve seen virtually every other insult hurled at you by people on this site, but if someone on this site called you a traitor for your opposition to Iraq, I missed that post. Do we all need to get on a bus and go to some town in Missouri or where ever to tell some kook that: “God doesn’t hate gays.” ? I’m not finished but let me break this post up.
@B.D. I’m glad you mentioned Michael Savage in your post because he serves as another good illustration. Savage is conservative, he has a talk show, and I listened to him extensively until I couldn’t take it anymore. I disdain Savage. How are Savage and Limbaugh similar? In my opinion they have a lot in common, their jobs, their confidence to the point of arrogance, and generally their political persuasion an subject matter. There of course are differences on opinions in some areas but their is one main reason I can’t stand to listen to Savage. It is his constant crying about his personal fights, over a period of years, whenever I did listen to him, he would occasionally beg for money for his legal fight he had with some organization. Now he has moved on, now he constantly complains that he is on a list that prevents him from entering the United Kingdom. He wants donations, he complains that the U.S. government doesn’t come running to his aid to fight this personal injustice. Perhaps he has a case, perhaps a wrong has been done to him. But he wants me to send him money to help him win the right to vacation in England? I’ve got better things to do with my money, and better things to do with my time than to listen to him whine. Now, in my opinion, there is a difference between an article and the comments section. My understanding is (Correct me if I’m wrong) that their is a significant percentage of people that will read a particular blog that never make a comment. Of those, I believe it is widely held assumption that many never even read the comments section. They read the article, they don’t comment, and they are done. What value is it to spend so much space and words on your battles with other commentators? Your last article has a whole lot of talk that would be completely meaningless to someone who doesn’t read the comments. That is why I’m inclined to tune you out. I haven’t tuned you out completely, granted I don’t hang on every word between F&B and B.D. generally just skimming right past those exchanges, but if I end up tuning you out completely, it won’t be because you opposed the war, it won’t be because you think former President of the United States Bush is an evil moron, or that you believe Republicans are unfit to lead the country. It will be because of what I consider your predominately self absorbed, insult laced rants.
@Mike 300 Spartans, Well done, couldnt have said it better myself, other than throwing a few references to “Scooby Doo” or smelly Dogs…
@Mike 300 Spartans, Thanks, Mike. The column’s speaks for itself. The quotes from commenters were used as illustration of the rant’s thesis.
@bad dog, O.K. B.D. I won’t fold my hand yet. I see your “Thank you” and raise you one thank you. Thanks for reading my feedback and for your response.
The director of the Apollo Alliance’s New York office is Jeff Jones. Jones was a co-founder of the Weather Underground terrorist group, along with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.
Van Jones, the controversial former “Green Jobs Czar” who recently resigned after public furor over his inflammatory racial comments and his past admission to being a communist, is also now with the New York State branch of the Apollo Alliance.
What is the Apollo Alliance? From their own site:
“The Apollo Alliance provides a message of optimism and hope, framed around rejuvenating our nation’s economy by creating the next generation of American industrial jobs and treating clean energy as an economic and security mandate to rebuild America.”
Sounds like Barak Obama’s campaign theme huh?
How nice. The Apollo Alliance apparently has the full faith and trust of Obama and his administration. The group helped write President Obama’s stimulus bill. They continue to have the full faith of the president and Van Jones was just moved from one Czar job with influence to another Organization that has powerful influence over the President and his policies.
@GawdDayumAmerica, Oh stop WHINING you little girl, if you had a brain you might be able to talk with F&B, maybe even CLD, but not ME!!! Bush had czars, his good ole boys from Haliburton and rednecks from Texas, get a clue before I say somthing even you might understand…I worked for the Apollo Alliance for 5 years, after I got back from saving the tribes in Africa with the Peace Corps, my wife spent months in the jungle rescuing the gorillas from extinction, before we both reformed Acorn, the greatest social organization in the world…(text goes on for 12 paragraphs as the readers click away…)
Thank you, my impersonation of the “Bad Dog” character, whomever “it” may be…I’ll be here all week…
It’s a pretty new race, but we’re working hard to make sure Michele Bachmann don’t get a 3rd term in Congress. Dr. Maureen Reed is running against her and is going to wipe the floor with her.
Donate here:
http://maureenreedforcongress.com/
and find more biographical info about Maureen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maureen_Reed
doesn’t* haha typed that too fast :p
@MNBlue, No problem on the typo, I make plenty myself, but didn’t Bachmann just win 10 months ago? You fund raising for 3 years from now? By the way, if you happen to be in or from Minnesota, what part? I have a lot of friends their, I lived there as a kid and was a big Tarkington fan.
@Mike 300 Spartans, Yeah, typos are no reason to be embarrassed… I make my own fair share of ‘em
@Mike 300 Spartans,
Congressional races are every 2 years, so she’s up next November. Election is in less than 14 months.
I’m living in Anoka, but I’m from Saint Paul. Went to the U of MN TC Campus.
Remember the wave of outrage that swept the nation after Charlton Heston, the president of the National Rifle Association, told a radio interviewer that the best way to deal with liberal filmmaker Spike Lee would be to “shoot him with a .44-caliber Bulldog” revolver? Remember the scathing editorials and the full-page ads blasting Heston’s appalling remark?
You don’t remember? Don’t feel bad. It never happened. Heston never said that about Lee.
Lee said it about Heston.
@GawdDayumAmerica,
Neurotic, paranoid, false to fact and false to reason, forever self-rationalizing his inner rage at his own impotence, and failure dripping from every word, and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane as any terrorist; the former vice president has today humiliated himself beyond redemption.
Keith Olberman about someone on the right.
“Fox News Channel will never restrain itself from incitement to murder and terrorism,” said Olbermann, “not until its profits begin to decline or when its growth stops, so not so much a boycott here as a quarantine, because this has got to stop. …The goal is to get this blindly irresponsible man and his ilk off the air.”
The Civil discourse on air by Keith Olberman.
@GawdDayumAmerica,
Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don’t fall in line with people who don’t respect us and who we don’t believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.
@GawdDayumAmerica, There are a whole lot of religious people in America, including the majority of Democrats. When we abandon the field of religious discourse — when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations toward one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome — others will fill the vacuum. And those who do are likely to be those with the most insular views of faith, or who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.
@GawdDayumAmerica, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for…” — Howard Dean
“Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process. There’s no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president.” — Jimmy Carter
“We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. Bill Maher.
“I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry.” — Louis Farrakhan
“A spoiled child (Bush) is telling us our Social Security isn’t safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here’s your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little b*stard. [audio of gun being cocked].” — A “humor bit” from the Randi Rhodes show
“If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!” — Democratic Talk Radio’s Stephen Crockett
@GawdDayumAmerica, You know that all those quotes were really cobbled together by Fauxly Gnus. You know, just the way Mikey Moore does in his cinemagraphic novels. None of those people ever said anything even remotly close to what is attributed to them. Honest.
@GawdDayumAmerica, Obama accused his Republican critics of wanting to return to “the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin.”
The CBO on Friday estimated that the Deficit for the next 8 years will increase by 7.9 trillion dollars.
…Mr. Obama called Ms. Collins and Mr. Specter, as well as Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, another Republican expected to support the deal, to acknowledge they were acting against pressure from their party and, one official said, to thank them for their PATRIOTISM in helping advance the bill at a critical time.
The Rest of the GOP whom voted against the bill are UNPATRIOTIC.
These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades. Steny Hoyer.
GOP Performance at Obama Speech Was Un-American…Washington Post.
BD: “Let’s face it, wingnuts. You don’t want a civil debate about anything. You just don’t like people disagreeing with you.” — Take a look at some of the exchanges that do not include any of your comments Bad Dog. Then you will see what “civil debate” looks like. I have a feeling that is the only way you will see civil discussion between people with opposing points of view.
Cheers from another gun toter who loves his country and, well, simply Hates these hypocritical assclowns who have suddenly decided that the man who has been elected by a landslide, to clean up the disaster that was the traitorous bush cartel and their criminal confederates lying and keeping the idiots scared and stupid while stealing the country blind using hitler’s handbook the whole way, has somehow done something wrong in the short time he has been in office by trying to give most of them healthcare they can afford, and use the money that GLEN BECK cried and begged for, to try and get the economy back on track.
I agree with you 100% having been one of the Actual MILLIONS who marched in protest of the real scumbags who attacked our country, while these whiny teabaggers ate the shit sandwiches handed to them after they were told they were “freedom steaks”, then they blew those traitors and bent over and begged for more. I would truely enjoy smacking the piss out of every one of these useless turds no doubt, but I’ll have to settle for smacking them around on the message boards. The way I look at it, I can’t go over there to fight the taliban or I damn sure would, but somehow people forget that those people are called CONSERVATIVES! Those people are the same Everywhere! In Iran our enemy is not the people, it’s the CONSERVATIVES! In Afghanistan our enemy is not the people, it’s the CONSERVATIVES! The CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN TALIBAN scum here is just as much an enemy to this country as they are anywhere else in the world AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH. These are the same cowardly pieces of shit who shot that beautiful girl because she was protesting their CONSERVATIVE bullshit and theft of their elections, and the Very same ones who stood in their pulpits and called anybody who didn’t blindly support treason, lies, and abandoning the Only war that we were supposed to actually BE in, to attack some other country that didn’t have anything to do with our country being attacked and let the attackers go free to regroup and regain strength, traitors! The ones who now blindly march to support huge insurance companies who have been practicing DEATH PANEL healthcare for YEARS! and for the rich who wouldn’t piss on them to get a big fat tax cut. So I feel just as good if not better, fighting those taliban scum right here.
Thank you for serving your country.
@Jimbbob,
7 years of this type of speech under Bush and suddenly the left has amnesia and never said a bad thing about Bush.
I know I didn’t say it, and I didn’t see anybody else saying that they never called the drunken awol cheerleader any names. I warned along with many others that this guy has run every business he’s ever touched right into the ground, and somehow was the only one to come out ahead, while everybody else lost their shirt, and that’s just what you’re going to see him do to this country. Flash forward 8 years…..I hate to say I told you so….
HOWEVER, at the time after 9/11, he had a chance, the entire world had our back and supported our invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down the scumbags who attacked us. Hell, if I could have joined the Army again, I would have myself in a minute as I hate conservative right wing wackos regardless of what cult they belong to, and these were particularly unsavory and more than worthy of a serious ass wooopin. Yes the whole world and even myself, were 100% behind hunting down every last one of those scumbags, and then the damnest thing happened. The idiot in charge of the war, got a message from the war profiteers, that this little bitty war over in Afghanistan just wasn’t making them enough taxpayer dollars. Nope, he needed to forget about that little scuffle, and go and attack another country altogether, and all he had to do was pretend they had something to do with 9/11 while everyone was still riled up about it, and nobody would mind a bit. Unfortunately, most of the world, myself included, said to that “hey! WTF are you doing?!?!?” “You haven’t caught the people who attacked America, and they are NOT in that country!!!”
But dingleberry didn’t listen, “I’m the deciderer!” he said, “if they aint with us, they’re against us!” And charged off in the wrong direction and attacked the wrong country, drawing to a quick close, the support of the entire world, and instead creating hatred and distain for Americans and America across the globe as he and his criminal confederates proceded to rob America blind and create thousands of new terrorists bent on destroying America along the way, more than Bin Laden himself could ever have even dreamed of.
Of course along with the rest of the world, a large portion of America shared the sentiment. For many of us, it started as disgust along with everybody else about this idiot attacking the wrong country, but as the lies and scare tactics became more obvious, millions more Americans began to join us in their disgust and mistrust of these crooks, and yes, we were very vocal, and very much RIGHT, in our assessment of the situation, and so was everybody else, and that’s precisely why we flushed the contards out of our government, and hired the most qualified person to fix the mess.
NOW, when he starts doing something other than trying to get you and me cheaper healthcare and repair our status as a world power, and repair our broken economy, by bombing people who did not attack us, while letting the people who DID attack us get away, well you feel free to yell and scream and criticize, and we will join you. Until then, you whiny teabaggers who said and did nothing while the drunken awol cheerleader shredded the contstitution and robbed and pillaged America, need to sit down and STFU, because nobody gives a rat’s ass what you think what so ever.